tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-54301752730669187252024-03-14T02:21:38.667-04:00Jakob's Eve ChecklistPlaying in the huge sandbox that is New Eden.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06561998031457981240noreply@blogger.comBlogger179125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5430175273066918725.post-46177490774459516652018-03-20T12:37:00.002-04:002018-03-20T12:37:30.493-04:00Did FanFest 2017 kill my engagement with Eve?<h2>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Did Fanfest 2017 kill my engagement with Eve?</span></div>
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Will Fanfest 2018 revitalize it?</div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Yes, yes, not dead yet though an observer could understandably think so given that both my last blog post and my last killboard entry occur in June 2017. How could that happen? I just got back from FanFest, wrote a couple articles for Crossing Zebras about it, and even appeared on the MindClash podcast. Exciting stuff, right? The kind of thing that carries your enthusiasm for the game forward for months!</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Not really.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Fanfest 2017 was famously low on new announcements. Quite deliberately CCP did not make a big reveal that only FanFest attendees would hear (and capitalize on) first. The Kyonoke Inquest was pretty much the venue where something new and interesting was happening, and there was a lot of excitement about what it might mean for the in-game universe. The answer was: pretty much nothing.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">After Fanfest I returned to the action in Faction Warfare, except there wasn't much action in FW itself. As I wrote in <a href="http://evechecklist.blogspot.com/2017/05/content-drivers-big-and-small.html">May 2017</a>:</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>In my smaller corner of cluster the Gallente Militia have moved on to attempt to invade the Amarr side of factional warfare. This is pretty much entirely because the Caldari suddenly disappeared from the war in any effective sense. When I last found that my interest in Eve was waning I took a vacation in my Stratios. I came back because there was of the sudden rush of the Caldari against our war zone, and I felt motivated to help defend my friends at arms in the militia. Now as I look at how things are moving in terms of content it seems unlikely that should I go on another vacation there will be a new content source such as that to pull me back.</i></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">And pretty much that was true. The Gallente forces went on to invade nullsec due to the lack of any legitimate FW opposition. If you're reading this blog you probably know all about that, but if not check out <a href="https://crossingzebras.com/galmilistanthe-accidental-empire/">Galmilistan: The Accidental Empire</a> on CZ. Despite training into capitals that might actually make sense to use in null, I found I never really had the energy to have my stuff shipped off to nullsec to join the action there.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Fanfest 2017 brought something else into my life that has probably been the biggest challenge to my Eve time: photography. Iceland is beautiful, and I spent a week seeing it before Fanfest got started, trying to capture some of that beauty with my old, entry-level DSLR. There was a reddit thread from two years ago or so where someone mentioned going to Iceland and renting a camper, intending to do a tour of Iceland and then go to Fanfest. He never made it to Fanfest - Iceland was just too amazing for him to stop traveling and seeing the incredible geography to want to go sit in the exhibition hall with his internet spaceship friends. I completely get that.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Photography has taken up a lot of my spare time and money since then. Taking classes and going to workshops. Learning how to better use my camera and how to edit photos. All this from a guy who is an engineer by education and a manager by profession, now looking at learning things that a freshman art school student probably already knows. Yeah, I'm not challenging <a href="https://www.rixxjavix.com/">Rixx Javiks</a> on the art front. At night if I'm sitting down at the computer and have two hours or so until bed, do I want to edit photos, read about photography, or browse other people's work for inspiration? Or do I see if there is a roam that is going to run around the Gal/Cal warzone to see if there is any content to be had or (seems as likely) log off having found nothing more than a single gank? How much do I want to anchor in a Machariel, suck up some void bombs, and see anyone is going to defend this timer from us?</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Don't get me wrong - Fanfest 2017 was a great experience. I enjoyed meeting all sorts of players and Eve "celebrities". I enjoying covering the Kyonoke Inquest for CZ. There wasn't much from the CCP presentations, yeah, but it looks like they learned from that given Eve Vegas. I'm still following Eve podcasts like Declarations of War, High Drag, and Mindclash (though not as regularly). I'm interested to see where Ash's new Eve Universe podcast goes. From that Eve meta I hear that just maybe there will be some big reveals at Fanfest 2018. Are we finally ready to have more from the Drifter storyline? Are we going to be able to build stargates? Is CCP going to do something that will revitalize Factional Warfare?</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Hah hah, yeah okay, that last one was a joke. No, CCP isn't going to do anything for FW.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">But I'll be listening for Fanfest 2018. My subscription expires at the end of April. Maybe I'll futz around as an Alpha from time to time after that. Maybe Eve will continue to fade away. Or maybe, just maybe, something will come up that changes my mind.</span><br />
<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06561998031457981240noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5430175273066918725.post-86615229261096004992017-06-18T08:59:00.001-04:002017-06-18T08:59:20.192-04:00Mind Clashing over Theomachy<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I've been listening to Mind Clash ever since it started being syndicated on the Crossing Zebras RSS feed. So when I logged into Theomachy and saw Kael Decadence had an open invite for an informal little team, I joined right in. When it was all said and done Kael was kind enough to invite me onto the Mind Clash podcast, so you can hear our thoughts on Theomacy in <a href="https://crossingzebras.com/the-mind-clash-podcast-episode-40-over-the-hill/">Episode 40</a>.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The Theomachy team put in a huge amount of work here, and CCP has really stepped it up with the Thunderdome server. We were actually there for Theomachy at the same time as other folks were practicing for the AT, so there was probably extra load than it was designed for as well. Unlike SiSi, Thunderdome is not replicated off of Tranquility. Your account is there, but none of your characters and assets. So the first thing you do is create your character and use a command to grant yourself all Vs in everything. That meant that Theomachy had a wide range - had they chosen to there could have even been Titans on field. However, it sounds like they'd experimented with capitals and up before and kept it toned down.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Since you can spawn anything, there was also some question about whether or not they could enforce the rule of having no implants and boosters. When we first logged in it sounded like that rule might be waived, so I spawned myself a full high-grade Snake set with a bundle of other +6% implants just in case. It turned out that they were able to handle that, so we all ripped out implants back out. Talk about feeling rich for a little while.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Basically they had us all Titan bridge to a target system, set our medical clones there, and then podded us to remove implants. There was a bit of a hold up as it turned out the Titan didn't have the right isotopes handy, so the overall event was running quite a bit late. All these are learning lessons that the Theomachy team is taking to heart, so I have confidence things will run even better next time.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">When you arrive in system in your pod and the event starts, you dive towards the empty ships and try to grab one. I did have a bit of a glitch when I first arrived - regardless of what ship I got into, my HUD remained stuck on pod. I received permission from the organizers to log out and log in, and after that I was all good.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">And after this I didn't take any more screenshots because I got wrapped up in actually flying and not dying (bad blogger!) You can see the recording twitch streams (<a href="https://www.twitch.tv/videos/149836346">Meerdudd</a> and <a href="https://www.twitch.tv/videos/149274354">Kael Decadence</a>).</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I wasn't sure if the ships were going to be crazy fits or not, but all of the ones I got into seemed generally reasonable. I ended up in a string of destroyers and cruisers for a while, which was good for zipping around but with so many pilots on field it is pretty likely that one of them that just blap you in you're in a frigate (especially given RLMLs). For a while I got into a Exequror, which was a good complement to Meerdudd and Kael being in battleships, but one of the other groups probably decided it was too good a complement and primaried me. A solo Exeq running an overheated Ancil doesn't last too long, even at full AB speed.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">For our comms: Meerdudd and Kael were streaming and I was able to speak to them through their Discord. However, I could only hear them through their twitch stream. That meant there was a delay between when I heard them and when I could reply. It was maybe only 30-60 seconds or something, but it felt like forever. It meant I had to anticipate their calls, or just join in late.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I was surprised how often I was able to reship, even when there were bubbles around. People were probably much more wrapped up in their individual combats in large part. If you go into Theomachy thinking "I probably won't last 10 minutes" you'll be surprised. It's great fun and for a good run to. I'd recommend trying to get into the largest ship you can, as speed doesn't end up really playing well in such a large mob scene. It's no surprise that the winners were all in Marauders last I saw.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Eventually I did head back to reship and got caught in a bubble and podded. It felt like a good end to the whole thing after a long series of fights. I'd highly recommend it, so look out for it next year.</span><br />
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06561998031457981240noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5430175273066918725.post-76218255882025384492017-05-25T22:34:00.002-04:002017-05-25T22:35:20.266-04:00Hype for a Roam<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I managed to catch a Kirith Kodachi Sunday night roam, which often doesn't happen just because of RL scheduling. I logged on after the fleet had already departed, so when I heard it was dessies and down I fumbled around my hangar and pulled out a Wolf. It was a terrible choice for a fleet, even one that only had a single frigate logi, but even moreso when I realized it was pretty much all armor ships. The Wolf... really not so much.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">After a couple empty systems we found a <a href="https://zkillboard.com/kill/62443284/">Moa</a>, killed it, and then found a much blingier <a href="https://zkillboard.com/kill/62443400/">Moa</a>... killed it. A couple frigates were in the wrong place at the wrong time, a <a href="https://zkillboard.com/kill/62443514/">Talos</a> (no, double webs weren't enough to slow down small targets), and a <a href="https://zkillboard.com/kill/62443593/">Stork</a>. The Stork was a challenge because he was burned way out in a medium plex, and Open Graves had to run him down and get a scram on him to slow him down enough for me to get my arties on him. Or perhaps more importantly, get a scram on him without dying.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Have I mentioned the new stars are pretty?</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Anyway, then we went on and found a <a href="https://zkillboard.com/kill/62443634/">Hurricane</a> and buddies. I remember seeing people trying to use double-web Hurricanes to fight small-hull gangs, but this wasn't that successful (and only had a single web).</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The real capstone of the night through was when a wild <a href="https://zkillboard.com/kill/62444248/">Hyperion</a> appeared. The triple-rep held out pretty nicely, and people were starting to talk about whether they had any big ships nearby, but apparently he just plain ran out of cap boosters. Kudos to Nyaruko Wu for bringing the Hype out to play - there were GFs in local and it sounded like he brought it out knowing it would die.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">For lowsec being dead and all it was a pretty action-packed roam. Thanks to <a href="http://www.ninveah.com/">Kirith Kodachi</a> for leading it out!</span></div>
<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06561998031457981240noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5430175273066918725.post-38112336977080585202017-05-08T12:30:00.000-04:002017-05-08T12:30:01.659-04:00Content Drivers big and small<div style="color: #454545; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">There have been some great new content-driving events coming in Eve Online lately. Two of them are driven by things that came straight from CCP announcements at FanFest. Notably the Blood Raider engineering complex and the promise of the blueprints that will come from it's destruction. The second is the player outposts being turned into faction Fortizars as they are removed. The third content comes from player origins and embodies the sandbox that is Eve. Outside of this, we all keep looking for our own content too.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">There have been plenty of people speculating on how the Blood Raider event sites being in </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Imperium </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">controlled space might lead other people to invade that space. PL/NC of course comes to mind for just about everyone as the only force that is actually big enough to threaten the </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Imperium </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">in their new home. It seems unlikely that all of the groups that came together for World War Bee could be gathered together with this motivation. For many the point was made when the Imperium crumpled, and for others it was a once-in-a-lifetime event that simply doesn't feel the same when repeated. I don't know much about the great power balance between PL/NC forces compared to the Imperium but it seems unlikely that even PL/NC would truly be able to shake loose the Goons hold on that space. It seems far more likely that they will threaten to hot drop an operation on these Blood Raider sites but not leave any truly lasting impact. In the end it will then be a question of how efficiently the </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Imperium </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">can farm these sites, but there's going to be a significant learning curve it seems.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The conversion of players outposts is an unexpected value proposition for content, but one that people started running the numbers on as soon as mentioned at FanFest. The spectulation is that these faction citadels will be greatly in demand and thus whoever holds control of them at the flip point will be able to pack them up, move them to market, and resell them for a tidy profit. I have heard one quote of 12T ISK for all of the outposts in Providence, for instance, but there's obviously a lot of speculation behind those numbers given that final stats haven't been released yet. But the promise is enough to make some people start eyeing their favorite starmap.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">That ISK making opportunity may be at least part of what is behind the third content source that we are seeing right now. <a href="http://www.pcgamer.com/eve-onlines-latest-war-is-being-fought-over-anime/">The Anime War</a>, as it has been dubbed is truly player generated content. For the origins of this "war" all you need to do is travel to reddit, though I've linked above to the PCGamer article because it's impressive that it's gotten attention from beyond the silly world of reddit. But the bottom line is that Provi Block and their allies have been attacked by PL and fam perhaps because for the eventual ownership of the outpost mentioned above. Whether or not that is the cause is almost irrelevant in the sense that it is something that has captured the players' imagination. For such a diehard group of nerds as we Eve players are, a battle over freedom for anime (or freedom from anime) just makes sense.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">In my smaller corner of cluster the Gallente Militia have moved on to attempt to invade the Amarr side of factional warfare. This is pretty much entirely because the Caldari suddenly disappeared from the war in any effective sense. When I last found that my interest in Eve was waning I took a vacation in my Stratios. I came back because there was of the sudden rush of the Caldari against our war zone, and I felt motivated to help defend my friends at arms in the militia. Now as I look at how things are moving in terms of content it seems unlikely that should I go on another vacation there will be a new content source such as that to pull me back. I also found that it was difficult to find individual targets for a solo roamer, or perhaps I just didn't look long enough and enough places. </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">This may also mean that I just need to bring an alt, even if not well-trained, to help me take slightly riskier odds when in strange places. </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">As much as the wars in Providence sound like they could be fun i'm not sure if being the in +1 number of a nightmare fleet would really be that much more motivating. It also seems like most of the content there is concentrated in the European time zone.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The good news is that heading into what could be a quiet period in the game we are seeing content coming from both CCP and from the players themselves. What I need to figure out for myself is where I could get into content, or if I need to make a stronger attempt at generating my own content. With the currently limited amount of time I spend in game I would need to have a means to get to content that fit that budgeting of my time. The alternative is something that plenty of Eve players do, but I have not yet done myself, which is to take a break for these warm summer months and let my other hobbies have more of my time. If I follow that path certainly know Eve will never be too far away since discord and other channels will always be there. You can logoff, but you can never leave...</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">(Most of this article was "written" by voice-to-text on my phone, which led to some hilarious and hard to recognize changes. If there are any still left, my apologies. See also "for action for desires", and "set Adele")</span></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06561998031457981240noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5430175273066918725.post-65434330496923966732017-04-23T14:28:00.000-04:002017-04-23T14:28:41.943-04:00Looking back on Fanfest, with lots of pictures<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Fanfest was a great experience. It's one thing to hear people say that every Eve player should get to Fanfest or one of the other big events, but it is another thing to be there are surrounded by all of your fellow Eve players.</span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Kyonoke Inquest propaganda postings</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Inquest attendees hard at work puzzling through the data</td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I was particularly impressed with the Kyonoke Inquest event, but I won't say more here since I wrote three articles about it for Crossing Zebras. (<a href="https://crossingzebras.com/fanfest-2017-kyonoke-inquest-will-eve-players-rp/">Will Eve Players RP?</a>, <a href="https://crossingzebras.com/fanfest-2017-kyonoke-inquest-op-success/">Op Success?</a>, and <a href="https://crossingzebras.com/fanfest-2017-kyonoke-wrapup/">Wrap-up</a>). I even got a chance to talk about it on my first podcast appearance ever, <a href="https://crossingzebras.com/crossing-zebras-episode-68-fanfest/">Crossing Zebras 68: Fanfest</a>.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I'll be looking for more on the Kyonoke Inquest and its consequences from <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gmLndFYYt1Q">The Discourse</a>. The actors from The Company P really adapted well and held the whole things together.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">While I'm an (amateur) photography buff, I didn't end up taking a huge number of pictures of FanFest itself, and left my DSLR in my room. My new iPhone was pretty nice for the casual shooting through. One little thing I did involved a tiny stuffed animal, Oorg, that my daughter sent with me to keep me company. On impulse I asked a few people to pose with Oorg and the results were great. I only wish I'd done more of it.</span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Max Singularity and retinue<br />(I should have gotten their names too)</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Ariel (amongst other names)</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Cyrillian Voth. I love his puzzled look.</td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Of course there were panels and presentations to attend<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-1VID-XgT7uA/WPzs4IJG1SI/AAAAAAAAASo/KI5G8kylpgI95GFre7bNUC4_13yD7eyXACK4B/s1600/IMG_2815.JPG" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-1VID-XgT7uA/WPzs4IJG1SI/AAAAAAAAASo/KI5G8kylpgI95GFre7bNUC4_13yD7eyXACK4B/s320/IMG_2815.JPG" width="320" /></a><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/--qn4174MfQA/WPztB8Q_f-I/AAAAAAAAASw/Kqd7YbxVLQ48iu1kSW_AHlXw01ULcrjRwCK4B/s1600/IMG_2816.JPG" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/--qn4174MfQA/WPztB8Q_f-I/AAAAAAAAASw/Kqd7YbxVLQ48iu1kSW_AHlXw01ULcrjRwCK4B/s320/IMG_2816.JPG" width="320" /></a></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">And of course wherever you go there are Eve Players, including as you walk around Reykjavik</span>.</div>
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<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-zNIHP4fgUvE/WPzuae0LLbI/AAAAAAAAATU/9p9Q1ViNSNo8rm10h-7xoDjG-KdmCcnmACK4B/s1600/IMG_2868.JPG" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-zNIHP4fgUvE/WPzuae0LLbI/AAAAAAAAATU/9p9Q1ViNSNo8rm10h-7xoDjG-KdmCcnmACK4B/s320/IMG_2868.JPG" width="320" /></a><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-7x859Y7ETwE/WPzuh3XmLbI/AAAAAAAAATc/GI5WeQmyZas_k6Z7vkcXK5WZUmmaGaNrgCK4B/s1600/IMG_2840.JPG" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-7x859Y7ETwE/WPzuh3XmLbI/AAAAAAAAATc/GI5WeQmyZas_k6Z7vkcXK5WZUmmaGaNrgCK4B/s320/IMG_2840.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I think that in the end the presence of the community is what draws a lot of players back to FanFest. Going to <a href="http://www.thelaundromatcafe.com/en/home">The Laundromat Caf</a>e and sitting down with Eve players, or if you're not feeling so sociable, perhaps you just smile at the shirts and badges that you recognize. I'm not sure if you can get this kind of density of Eve players in the other events (Eve Vegas, Eve Nottingham, Eve Down Under, Eve Amersterdam, etc.) like you can in Iceland. For me seeing Iceland was astounding as well, and I'm looking to bringing my family one of these days... preferably when I can manage to get in another Fanfest. Whoever is reading this, I hope I can see you there some day as well.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>(Sorry for the layout - Blogger isn't exactly a sophisticated image presentation system.)</i></span></div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06561998031457981240noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5430175273066918725.post-24719872573368139512017-03-24T12:42:00.000-04:002017-03-24T12:42:00.274-04:00Preparing for Iceland and Fanfest<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">So my time and Eve has been shortened lately. And it's going to be even shorter over the next week as I prepare the final details of visiting Iceland for FanFest. Appropriately enough as I finish up writing this, CCP Falcon has posted the <a href="https://community.eveonline.com/news/dev-blogs/the-eve-fanfest-2017-megablog/">Eve Fanfest 2017 Megablog</a>. So let's talk about seeing Iceland, and not just the inside of the Harpa and nearby pubs during Fanfest.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I'm going to be arriving early so I can do some sightseeing around the beautiful country. I am an amateur photographer so I am very much looking forward to the fantastic geography that Iceland provides. Honestly, the beautiful images I've seen are intimidating - the place looks so beautiful I would hate to take photos that don't do service to it. I'm not going to be trying to haul too much in the way of gear. I think that the real trick for packing will be getting the tripod along without having to pay for another bag just for it. </span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">From Brittannica.com: Aurora borealis over the Snaefellsnes peninsula, western Iceland, March 2013</td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">We'll be just at the end of the time period for aurora borealis, as I understand it, but it would be a nice bonus.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">For all that I've heard about Iceland being well ... icy ... it amuses me that it is warmer there than it is in my home right now near Boston Massachusetts. Of course I've also heard that the Iceland climate is highly variable so it's best to plan for it to be colder. I can only imagine what the wind coming in off the North Atlantic is like. </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I've heard some negative comments about tourists trying to hike over glaciers in their jeans certainly so I'll make sure to bring some heavier clothes and snow pants. A layer of thermals sounds like a good plan too. If it is so cold that thermals, flannel lined pants, and snowpants doesn't cut it then I probably shouldn't be outside anyway.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">If you're considering getting some sightseeing in while you're at Fanfest, and not just the CCP scheduled Sisters of Eve tour, I'd recommend checking out the blog <a href="http://www.iheartreykjavik.net/">I Heart Reykjavik</a>. It has a nice sense of humor about it along with some very practical, non-salesy information. There are a lot of options for seeing Reykjavik and Iceland, particularly since tourism has been a huge part of Iceland's recovery from the banking crash that practically took out the country. Unfortunately it sounds like tourism has been so popular that there is a bit of backlash (see "<a href="http://www.iheartreykjavik.net/2017/03/quick-qa-is-iceland-overcrowded-with-tourists/">Is Iceland Overcrowded with Tourists</a>"). If you've ever lived in a tourist spot, you probably know how they feel. So, my fellow Fanfest attendees, please represent yourself, your country, and Eve players by treating Iceland and it's people well while you're there!</span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I'll be arriving on Saturday 01 April (no joke!) and then leaving on Sunday 09 April. I'll be renting a little 4x4 from <a href="http://www.carsiceland.com/">Cars Iceland</a> for the touring part of the vacation prior to Fanfest. The first day I've got a walking tour of Reykjavik lined up with I Heart Reykjavik, and i'll be catching <a href="https://en.harpa.is/events/event/how-to-become-icelandic-in-60-minutes-2/">How To Become Icelandic</a> at the Harpa at night, which sounds hillarious. Then it's off to the south coast to Vik, then Hof </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: #222222;">(note: </span>not the same as Höfn - made that mistake during planning at one point), and the Jökulsárlón Glacial Lagoon.</span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Image from theplanetd.com</td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Wow, right? All of these places are theoretically only two hours or so apart from one another on the highway. (yeah, "the" singular highway) However, there are so many cool things along the way that it's going to be slow forward progress really. Add to that the possibility of weather issues. Check out this <a href="https://www.google.com/maps/d/viewer?mid=1Bp0Bb3_B_hAXKEiSkSBhC5cTOF4&ll=64.05300613054882%2C-17.22149831249999&z=8">google map of places to see</a> on a southern route, courtesy of I Heart Reykjavik. I'm really back and forth between a tendency to want to plan all my details of each place and playing it by ear. The fact that work has been really busy has helped discourage me from too much overplanning though.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">If you're planning on sightseeing prior to Fanfest, feel free to drop me a line. I'm fully planning on enjoying doing this solo as a decompression prior to the chaos of Fanfest, but I'm all for sharing notes or getting together for a coffee / beer / <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brenniv%C3%ADn">brennivin</a>.</span>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06561998031457981240noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5430175273066918725.post-59872243100440787862017-03-13T13:19:00.001-04:002017-03-13T13:19:45.068-04:00CSM 12 - That snuck up on me<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I'm not sure if the period from the opening of candidacy for CSM to the actual voting opening was any different this time, but it sure felt that way. Most of that is how busy my RL has been, but it's also because my podcast feed wasn't full of CapStable interviews. Crossing Zebras has taken a shot at it between <a href="https://crossingzebras.com/tag/csm-chat/">Ashterothi's interviews</a> and the <a href="https://crossingzebras.com/tag/csm/">Declaration of War</a> panels (yes, the tags on CZ weren't consistently applied, so just look around), but it's definitely no replacement for the massive amount of work that the CapStable guys put into this in the past - and which probably burned them out from doing it again this time. A big thanks to all of the media folks who got CSM interview information out there.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">By the time I realized it was well underway I wasn't going to do my usual summary of the candidates (all 64 of them), particularly since information was spread over the meta. I don't have as complete a picture of the candidates at all, but it's time to get that voting in. I hate being under-informed about this, but I realized this was going to have to be a time-boxed exercise. So here are my top five candidates - arguments are welcome and may sway my vote by the time I get around to plugging them into the interface.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><a href="https://community.eveonline.com/community/csm/candidate?id=6366581">Scylus Black</a>: I'm glad to see him getting out the word about factional warfare. Even if FW isn't coming up soon on the roadmap, having someone to advocate should help CCP understand the impact of their new features on FW. Perhaps it will even help get FW on a future roadmap. I'll be at Fanfest, hoping to hear good news.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><a href="https://community.eveonline.com/community/csm/candidate?id=7933451">Steve Ronuken</a>: Look, does anyone ever doubt this guy should stay on CSM as long as he can stand it? He's probably the one CSM everyone agrees on.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><a href="https://community.eveonline.com/community/csm/candidate?id=9392535">Commander Aze</a>: I didn't rate him highly last time around, but he's stuck with it and has been improving his message. I'm also feeling a lot of sympathy for the highsec folks, while feeling the nullsec bloc folks don't need my vote.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><a href="https://community.eveonline.com/community/csm/candidate?id=8561795">Jin'taan</a>: The exception to that preceding sentence. I've been hugely impressed by his work to improve the communication coming out of the CSM. As a members of the Declarations of War podcast he has consistently asked candidates what they will do to make the CSM better. This is the change in mindset that we need and I'm hoping he'll continue to help make happen.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><a href="https://community.eveonline.com/community/csm/candidate?id=1729379">Suitonia</a>: He's clearly got a great understanding of the details of ships used in small gang work (which is where I like to play). Having at least one such CSM is probably good, though it sounds like he's been able to make a lot of contributions via direct contact from CCP as well as the focus groups. One note though - if you're going to link your blog from your candidate page, it's probably best if you've actually posted within the past twelve months.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">After I get through those five I'm not really finding many other candidates on the list that compelling. Maybe <a href="https://community.eveonline.com/community/csm/candidate?id=9462189">Vic Jefferson</a> (3rd time running, not much new info from my <a href="http://evechecklist.blogspot.com/2016/02/csm-11-candidates-part-1.html">negative review last time</a>)? Maybe <a href="https://community.eveonline.com/community/csm/candidate?id=9972992">Kalen Tsero</a> (he wants to support lowsec but <a href="https://crossingzebras.com/csm-chat-kalen-tsero/">doesn't know FW mechanics and people</a>?) Who else am I missing?</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06561998031457981240noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5430175273066918725.post-66140915012522973612017-03-03T12:35:00.001-05:002017-03-03T12:35:11.521-05:00BB80: Is it feasible to have a FW representative on CSM 12?<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">BB80 asks if CSM12 will be dominated by null-sec with no voice for hi-sec, low-sec, and WH players. I think there’s a chance for low-sec this time around if FW can show that it pulls together and votes in a candidate such as Scylus Black. But how good is that chance?</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: "georgia"; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><a href="http://sandciderandspaceships.blogspot.com/2017/02/blog-banter-80-voice-for-all-players.html">Blog Banter 80 – A Voice for All Players?</a></span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 18pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: "georgia"; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">CCP Seagull encourages you to get involved in CSM12 and put your name forward to be a Space-Politician. On his </span><a href="http://nevillesmit.com/" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #743399; font-family: "georgia"; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">blog</span></a><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: "georgia"; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> Neville Smit noted that CSM11 had done a good job with minimum of drama. However he said he’d not be covering CSM12 like he has in previous years as he sees no point. The power-blocs will vote on who they want and unless Steve Ronuken manages to get on CSM12 it is almost certainly going to have every seat taken by the big null-sec blocs.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: "georgia"; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Is Neville right? Is the CSM moving more and more into just a voice for 0.0? Is this a bad thing? Are the hi-sec, low-sec and WH players going to lose out badly or is it really not an issue as it's the same game? Could a totally null-sec dominated CSM 12 give a balanced voice for everyone?</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I’d like to <a href="http://www.ninveah.com/2017/03/bb-80-voices.html">agree with Kirith</a> that it is possible for a FW candidate to make it onto the CSM. Let’s take a quick look at the numbers. According to some analysis from Fuzzy Steve the threshold for getting on the CSM is at <a href="https://www.fuzzwork.co.uk/2017/02/11/csm-stuff-voting-system/">#voters divided by seats plus one, plus one</a>. If we have about the same number of <a href="https://community.eveonline.com/news/dev-blogs/csm-x-voting-results/">voters as CSM 10</a> (i.e. before the big disappointment of that CSM), that threshold is about 3364. If we stay at the historically low number of voters that <a href="https://community.eveonline.com/news/dev-blogs/csm-11-election-results/">voted in CSM 11</a> then that threshold is about 2045. So how many Faction Warfare players are there that are engaged enough to vote?</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I’m going to stick my neck out and say that if you’re in FW but you aren’t active enough to be considered an active PVPer by zkillboard, then you’re probably someone’s farming alt or not engaged enough to vote.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><a href="https://zkillboard.com/faction/500004/">Gallente Federation</a></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">1,121</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><a href="https://zkillboard.com/faction/500001/">Caldari State</a></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">1,330</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><a href="https://zkillboard.com/faction/500003/">Amarr Empire</a></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">1,040</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><a href="https://zkillboard.com/faction/500002/">Minmatar Republic</a></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">445</span></div>
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<b><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Total</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">3,936</span></b></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><i>Ouch on those numbers for the Minmatar.</i></span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">So that’s not terribly promising. We have enough people in Faction Warfare that if all of the active PVPers voted their #1 slot for the same FW candidate (such as <a href="http://ninveah.podbean.com/e/episode-135-csm-chat-with-canididate-scylus-black/">Scylus Black</a>) then they’d get on the CSM, assuming turnout numbers like CSM X. On top of that, we have to discount those numbers by how many people in Faction Warfare are Alphas, and thus ineligible to vote. If turnout was down to CSM 11 numbers, then we probably should discount our raw player counts for the same reason. We could hope that FW players have more than one active account (and thus more votes) but that may means they have more than one active PVPer in our counts as well. Those are some pretty big IFs.</span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">That tells me that Scylus Black not only needs to make the rounds with all of the Factional Warfare corps, but also needs to broaden his pitch to include other lowsec residents (aka pirates). The good news is that we in FW are already pretty well acquainted with them via the vigorous pew pew that happens every night.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">But he’s got his work cut out for him.</span>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06561998031457981240noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5430175273066918725.post-63063371960886459232017-01-20T22:51:00.001-05:002017-01-20T22:51:10.539-05:00Stratios Vacation: Part 2<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">When last we left the tale of my Stratios Vacation I had decided not to head home but instead to log off in Cloud Ring. I logged back in and indeed the WH to Lasleinur is gone. I did have a momentary panic because I hadn't reloaded my probe launcher before I logged, and it occurred to me that I might have left my probes out to expire. The changes made a while back that auto-retrieve your probes means that it is probably hard to actually lose them nowadays, but just in case that's probably a good point for other explorers: make sure you have a spare set of core probes on board. I probe down the new single new signature - it's one of those low sig sites, but by the time I get to 0.5 AU it comes up as a Gas Site. Nevermind that.</span></span></div>
<b id="docs-internal-guid-887eb096-bf1c-3e30-d653-1ea5c8b3fd7f" style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></b>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Moving from system to system I found that the area was strikingly absent of signatures. Enough that I wondered if the locals make a point of running/rolling them, though I can't imagine they can be bothered to roll wormholes in such space. Eventually I find a Relic Site and actually successfully run it to find about 7M worth of material. As I start to move to the next can someone enters local, so I aim away from the can, hit the MWD to get range and go for the cloak - just as a Helios lands, with the charming pilot name of "SpaceSlut 3000" - definitely classy. Anyway, the key question was "did he see me?" I circle back towards him under cloak. He's 24km away, so quite a bit more than my scram. And he's off before I can make any other decision. Musta saw me.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I move on to the next system and find seven signatures waiting for me (see what I get for complaining?). After a couple gas sites, my classy Helios pilot enters system, accompanied by a Stilletto. Meta 0 core probes drop, and the Helios stays on scan. Our SpaceSlut is apparently only four months old, and doesn't have cloaking skills yet. But he (no, I can't imagine the player of such a character is female) does have a friend (or a main, as the Stilleto pilot is from 2010) that can keep an eye out for them. Good combination, I'm not interested in trying my luck there.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">So time to move on - which brings me into the region of Fade. Hey, I can see Deklein from here! As I come into system, there's another null resident I happened to be in system with. Right as our charmingly named pilot comes back into system, he apparently gets nervous.</span></span></div>
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<a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-t-CQqJHWp4U/WILYsYSaZ1I/AAAAAAAAAQ0/Vm2dy46lFAc0XX85daoDcAxHEbwg6SP_gCLcB/s1600/StratiosVacation_1_StahpHuntingMe.PNG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-t-CQqJHWp4U/WILYsYSaZ1I/AAAAAAAAAQ0/Vm2dy46lFAc0XX85daoDcAxHEbwg6SP_gCLcB/s1600/StratiosVacation_1_StahpHuntingMe.PNG" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 14.6667px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Is that for me or the classy pilot? Who knows.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I moved along and got to a much more populated system (8W-OSE). As soon as I cleared the gate, I was greeted in local chat, along with a posted image</span></span></div>
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<a href="http://i.imgur.com/gqFtD9R.gif" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://i.imgur.com/gqFtD9R.gif" /></a></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">This is more like what I've heard of nullsec residents keeps an eye out for intruders, and probably a bit more attention than I'd like. In a Stratios I expect I can clear most gatecamps but, there's always a risk of an instalocker or a spread of wrecks/cans. I also have seen the same toon appear in system about 66% of the time after I enter, so I'm starting to wonder if that's chance or if he's keeping an eye on the neutral.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I double back towards Cloud Ring. In warping through I notice warp disruption bubbles. They aren't in quite the right place to block my warp, but it's a good reminder. I moved on back and there doesn't appear to be any pursuit. Things quiet down and empty out as a I move away, so I get to a safe and put out some probes to check out the signatures. In the middle of scanning local shows the arrival of a new pilot, so I hit d-scan and see a Gnosis. A check on the new pilot shows that it's a new character, started about when Alpha pilots became possible. Hmm, a Gnosis is a logical ship for taking on bigger rats or even scanning for an Alpha pilot... but it's also a very well known hull for baiting.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Okay, so d-scan down the Gnosis. I'm trying to use the d-scan by range trick that I've heard people describe rather than the more intuitive angle-scan approach. Basically if you go to 360 degree scan and start reducing your range, you'll probably find that there's only one celestial at the range where the target disappears. If you go by angle you'll have to do the sector by angle and then reduce range. In any case, if the Gnosis shows up at a belt or an Anom then I'm going for it I figure, counting on my better character skills compared to the greater size of the battlecruiser. Instead, it turns up near a gate. That's a flag, but I warp over under cloak to check it out.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The Gnosis is orbiting the gate at range and I don't recognize the turrets definitively, but they look like they might be Rapid Lights, which would be good for dispatching light tackle. The lazy wide orbit of a gate only seems to make sense as bait to me, so I warp away rather than try my luck. If he had gone to the belt nearest the gate and shot a rat I might have gone for it, and the way I've see Gnosis set for bait I bet he could have tanked me until his buddies showed up. The only trick might have been whether he could have kept tackle. Given that I had a scram and neuts I would have been in range to be scrammed and webbed down, and if the Gnosis had a cap booster then it could have kept point on me despite the neuts. But no.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 14.6667px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Instead, I check out the signatures. This area is feeling pretty responsive to neutral presence, and not terribly interesting for solo hunting, so when I find a wormhole to a C5 I decide to move on in. That leads to a C2. Googling shows someone on the forums once lived here and then was trying to buy a path back after accidentally rolling themself out. The C2 has a static C4 and static high, so that could be interesting. I log off here for the night, figuring I can use this as a good point to find something new next time I log in.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 14.6667px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Good night, sweet wormhole! Good night, cloaked Proteus!</span></span>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06561998031457981240noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5430175273066918725.post-62660979741099465782017-01-16T13:04:00.000-05:002017-01-16T13:16:13.476-05:00Fanfest 2017 Ticket Contest<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Are you thinking about Fanfest 2017, but you haven't gotten tickets yet? Let me help you make up your mind. CCP has given fansites an extra ticket to give away, so here goes. The contest is simple: comment on this post about what you like to see in Eve fansite blogs (as opposed to full-blown media sites like CZ, EN24, IN, etc). I'd appreciate it if you can point out if my blog here has ever covered what you want, but if you're just honest and say "I never read your blog until this contest" then that's fine too.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I'll choose a random comment that fits that description on Friday and have CCP send you the ticket. Make sure you include some way for me to contact me in your post!</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">CCP legalese-type notes: Tickets are only for admission for Fanfest itself. This ticket does not include any extra events that require separate tickets, and CCP is not offering to pay for your hotel or flights. CCP will not be able to send goodie bags to those that can’t attend in person.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">On that last point, I'd be pretty annoyed if the winner of the ticket didn't go, so please don't enter if you don't think there's a decent chance you'll go. To help incentize that, I'll throw in a free drink for the contest winner if we can get together at some point during Fanfest.</span>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Good luck!</span>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06561998031457981240noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5430175273066918725.post-67118616105851359002017-01-11T13:10:00.004-05:002017-01-11T13:10:38.519-05:00Stratios Vacation: Part 1<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">On New Year's Day I decided it was time for something a little different - particularly since the family is away visiting my wife's best friend. A change of pace from the usual FW play, though as I noted in the last blog there certainly has been a good bit of content there lately. So I packed up a Stratios and headed out into the great unknown. This entry (and some coming up) will be the tale of how that little vacation went. I'm also going to try to get back to my "Lessons Learned" bit that I used to include regularly in the blog.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>Note:</b> I'm trying some things I'm decidedly not an expert at, so don't try this at home kids! Oh, and advice on what I did wrong is quite welcome.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>Setting Out.</b> </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I decided not to post the fit right off the bat since as of this moment the hull hasn't been lost and I'm not good enough at this game to give up too much info. The general plan though is that I want to be able to PVP when the opportunity arises, but I have a mobile depot to swap things out. I even have relic and data analyzers in the cargo, though the last time I did hacking was back when the cans would spew out all over the place. I figure there's a very good chance this Stratios is going to die, so insurance is bought and it's time to undock!</span><br />
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<b style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Probing:</b><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> I always use the pinpoint pattern. As far as I know you would only use the spread pattern if you're trying to quickly figure out how many items of interest are in the area, without immediate need to resolve them to 100% and warp. Perhaps the combat probe experts might have something more to say about that. Another trick that newer folks might not know is that sites/WHs are always going to be within 4 AU of a planetary body, so you can save a pass at 8 AU in many cases where the red sphere of uncertainty is off-center of that planet.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I see a corpmate has already found and bookmarked a wormhole to a C3 right here in Suj, but there's also another WH sig that hasn't been investigated, so I scan that down and warp to 20 km, which is my usual safe distance to be able to check it out without being so close as to bump into someone (or the WH) and lose cloak, but still be within range to burn in and go through a WH easily enough. It's a lowsec hole, so that sounds like potential fun.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b><a href="http://evemaps.dotlan.net/system/Lasleinur">Lasleinur</a> (0.2, Metropolis, Minmatar held)</b>. There are </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">7 in local, and I'm seeing frigs and dessies on d-scan. I don't want to get caught up in a fight with a bunch of those. There are </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">10 signatures, so I start working them down, looking only for WHs as this system is too busy to try hacking or a combat site. My general practice is that if I scan down a WH I'll warp to it to check it out while I move the probes on to the next sig. I f</span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">orgot I had left myself cloaked off a C6 hole, and then got a surprise when I heard the wormhole splash sound. I panicked for a moment that I'd been decloaked as I switched back from the probing window just in time to see </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">it was a Cheetah passing through and I was still cloaked.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Along the way I found a tiny, hard to scan signature. When you're at 1AU and only 12% or so, it's something unusual. If it had been a hole to a shattered WH system then I might have turned around and gone back to Suj to reship to check it out. But instead, Relic Site. :(</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I'm finding it distracting as corpmates post juicy kills on the corp channel, but I stick with it. Time for a vacation, right, gotta stick to the plan.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">My general practice is to decloak and reload the probe launcher as I'm burning for the wormhole, so that it's loaded when I come out the other side. I wonder if that's what other people do?</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b><a href="http://evemaps.dotlan.net/map/Cloud_Ring/U65-CN">U65-CN</a> (-0.1, Cloud Ring)</b>. <span style="white-space: pre-wrap;">I see this is listed as -0.01, which if I understand right means it's terrible for ratting and such. </span><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;">It does show 142 jumps in the last 24 hours, so I'm guessing people pass through it on their way elsewhere since it looks pipe-ish, but it's empty now. I kill some belt rats as I scan, as I can use the security bump. I'm at -6.3 and have been annoyed recently at that keeping me at a disadvantage with gate guns and out of travelling shallow highsec shortcuts.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;"><b>Lets try hacking</b>: <a href="http://wiki.eveuniversity.org/Central_Serpentis_Sparking_Transmitter">Central Serpentis Sparking Transmitter</a>. </span><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;">I fail hacking the first mainframe, and after failing the next datacom unit I decide either this one is too hard for me or I need to watch some videos on how to do hacking. It feels like some things have changed since this first came out, and I'm not sure what. There are little numbers that appear in the nodes when you click on them, so there must be some data there I'm not getting.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;">I make up for it by shooting some rats in belts, though I was really hoping to find one of the special type of rat (like a Shadow Serpentis). No luck though, and I come to realize that Wardens were a terrible choice of Sentry since their optimal is longer than my drone control range in this Stratios.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;">It's now an hour in and I certainly haven't been moving as fast as I could. I'm pretty happy with trying out things here in null. S</span></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; white-space: pre-wrap;">ince this area of null looks like it could be good, I decide to duck back and get a better drone loadout to match the rats.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;">On my way, I get distracted by the fact that Lasleinur has a DED Security station. I've been meaning to <a href="http://wiki.eveuniversity.org/Security_status">trade tags for security status</a> lately. So, 48M ISK and many of my stored up tags later, I'm a reformed citizen, from -6.3 to -1.3. Good enough to get me into highsec systems again.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;">Back to U65-CN, at least after I made myself some lunch</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;"><b>Lets try ratting</b>. I refit for PVE and ran a small site (Serpentis Hidden Rally Point) while eating lunch. Actually, it took longer to run the site than eat my lunch, hanging out at 50km or so with Gardes boosted by my Omnidirectional tuned for Optimal Range. That's just inside one falloff, so then they charge towards optimal. If I wanted to really rat I suppose I need to be ready to refit to three DDAs. This is something I remember hating about rating like this. It takes forever and just when you think you're done there is one more wave. So eventually I said "forget this" and warped off. Two people had come into the system and while I couldn't see them on d-scan, and there weren't any probes out, it could be easy enough for one of them to be approaching under cloak or in a recon. So back to my safe, refit back for PvP and time to move on.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;">Except - there's a new signature showing. I scan it down, and find it's a relic site. Still in my PvP configuration, I head over to take a look at it. As I arrive I hit d-scan and see core probes ... but I've already pulled mine. The two people I'd seen in local earlier are gone and now there's a new person. Hmm... what are the chances he'll want to come run this relic site and I can be waiting for him. Still under cloak I slowboat to about 20km off of the cans and wait while I do other things around the house, peeking at the screen and hitting d-scan regularly to see if anything had changed. (Is this what <a href="http://cloakybastard.blogspot.com/">Cloaky Bastard</a> does?)</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;">As I check back I see now there are combat probes out. I double-check to make sure I didn't somehow bump something and lose my cloak (whew, all set). But the combat probes tell me that that the local isn't happy with the intruder in space. That works out okay since the family is just about home, so I move off to a safe and then safe-log.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;"><b>No going home (yet)</b>: I didn't head back through the WHs to home station. I expect that one of those WHs will be gone by the next time I log in, even if it's just later tonight. Now that I've gotten my security status up, I feel better about wandering about without a way home. It won't be that terribly hard to find a place to dock in lowsec or highsec and clone-jump back to Suj if there's something important I want to be a part of. That wasn't really possible with my old security status. Now as a Gallente FW member I'm not welcome in Amarr or Caldari space, so there is still a lot blocked off, but at least I can get into Gallente and Minmatar highsec.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;">The first session of the Stratios vacation hasn't resulted in any kills, and the ratting was not great from an ISK perspective (6.8M/tick) compared to what I hear of valuable null areas, but I'm enjoying the new space and trying to new things. There's no backup out here if things go wrong.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;">And maybe that's really part of the excitement of it, after all.</span></span>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06561998031457981240noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5430175273066918725.post-9107546876024796562017-01-05T19:38:00.002-05:002017-01-05T19:38:46.531-05:00Tale of Two Battles: Pilot Experience<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">So apparently I didn't post a blog in all of December. Fortunately I've got some ideas lined up that should help me keep this moving in the new year. I wasn't inactive for December though, and indeed there were two major battles I was in that I think provide an interesting compare and contrast. This won't be a battle report though, so if you want to know about <a href="http://evenews24.com/2016/12/21/the-battle-of-vey/">The Battle of Vey</a> or the <a href="https://crossingzebras.com/the-fall-of-fortress-vlillirier/">Battle of Vlillirier</a> then you should read those linked articles. This is about the experience of being a pilot in these two very different scenarios, and what that tells me about what I enjoy in Eve.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The Battle of Vey (18 Dec)</span></h4>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The motivation for Vey was largely that of denial - CHAOS was an enemy and they were putting down a Keepstar. My corp (RDRAW) formed up Machariels, fit with Arty but as usual carrying full refits. We bridged in and found the local count was 3000 plus and TiDi was in full effect pretty much as soon as we landed, as I recall. Now I've fought in battles where TiDi kicked in before, but generally in lowsec we don't see TiDi pinned to the 10% level for a full engagement. We're more likely to see TiDi kick in right as people undock or take a gate, or carry some smaller slowdown. As plenty of people have reported, this made the battle progress slowly. Before the "in my time" vets jump in, I completely agree that slow is better than broken, so I'm not quibbling with the mechanic of TiDi.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The other aspect was that we were coordinated with other fleets, with separate comms bridged by the FCs. Comms discipline was good, which also meant it was pretty quiet. It seemed pretty clear that our target caller was relaying the target selection made by others, which made the whole thing feel even more distant. We'd all go guns quiet, then be given a target to lock and shoot. We were teetering on the edge of being able to break enemy Machariels, so I'd guess that part of the limited information we were being given was so that spies couldn't relay the target so that their logi could get reps on before our alpha landed. On our side, our logi reported that we were losing ships before they could lock the friendly. </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">We ended up withdrawing in good order, so my Machariel made it back home and my killboard had some nice enemy battleships lined up (though no final blows, so no killmarks). If I had been primaried then losing the ship would have meant an end to the night, as smaller ships weren't useful and reshipping from that distance wasn't feasible, particularly given TiDi.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The experience as a pilot was much what I hear of the nullsec battle experience. You anchor up, you wait for a target call, then press F1, then stare either at the target's armor swing down or out the window into the black night wondering what you've gotten yourself into and when you'll get to bed. At least it was Saturday night (my time).</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The Battle of Vlillirier (22-23 Dec)</span></h4>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The motivation for Vlillirier was fighting our side in Factional Warfare. CalMil has been on a strong push (see <a href="https://crossingzebras.com/rise-of-the-state/">The Rise of the State)</a> and GalMil has frankly been divided, which is pretty much a mirror of the warzone from when I first joined up. Word went out that Vlillirier was under siege, so get into empty capsules and go help out. (spoiler: guess what part of that I <a href="https://zkillboard.com/kill/58504721/">failed to do.</a>)</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I won't get into the basics of <a href="http://wiki.eveuniversity.org/Factional_Warfare">factional warfare</a>, but in short we were running fleets of let's say 10-50 in and out of the FW plexes. Ships were cheap (if you brought your own) and plentiful (handed out by FCs). System control is often attrition warfare where if your opponent sets up in T2 ships (such as assault frigates) a good option is to have everyone reship into glass-cannon Catalysts, enter the plex, and blow up as many ships as you can before they can take you down. Often this may even be a "free fire" situation because the FC can't call the targets faster than you can kill them. Alternatively you may be in longer-range ships and you anchor up and follow targets like a more traditional Eve Online fleet. Your fleet will often split up into smaller groups to span across multiple plexes with those pilots having responsibility to call back intel and (to a limited degree) decide to stand and fight or flee when enemies appear on d-scan.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The experience as a pilot is generally rapid-fire. Our FC was generally light-hearted and chatty, with comms swinging between something closer to "battle comms" and fairly open with newbies asking how to use modules or work the overall mechanics. Die, reship, and possibly even jump back into the same plex. The pilot has to be paying attention, but the costs of not paying attention aren't that high in terms of ISK or being removed from the fight.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">So which would you pick?</span></h4>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">It seems obvious, doesn't it? This is why many of us fans of lowsec have trouble understanding the appeal of the "big nullsec fight." I know there is smaller-gang roaming in null, but the headlines are the big fights. Now I'd also expect that many of the nullsec fans would speak to how their fights have meaning, particularly when you've been part of an alliance and its community for a long time. I get that. I just can't see staying up until 2am in the morning hitting F1 every five minutes when someone tells me to.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">At the same time, there are also plenty of times when the FW battles can be F1 centric. There's plenty of trying to hold a plex in your solo frigate when you see a dozen destroyers appear on d-scan and you have no choice but to warp off. As someone who isn't very good at solo (as my recent killboard will attest) I can't say that I'm that variety of FW hero. But it sure seems that there is a readier opportunity for content in lowsec in general and FW in specific.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">That said, I've decided to give something a bit new a try, which I'll cover in coming blog posts...</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06561998031457981240noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5430175273066918725.post-25148214633662245942016-11-08T22:13:00.001-05:002016-11-08T22:13:27.401-05:00Fanfest 2017, here I come<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">After listening to the latest Declarations of War which was pretty much entirely about Eve Vegas, I remember that if I'm going to do Fanfest I ought to go ahead and get tickets. Yes, the Early Bird tickets are already gone, having gone on sale on October 28th. So after some consultantion with the wife I got the "Not so Early Bird" price on the tickets.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Whew, so now that's done, what next?</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Eve Events</span></h4>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Charity Dinner - I figured I could put off buying these a bit longer while I figure things out. It sounds pretty good, though I know I've heard mixed commentary in the past about the "dinner" part of it being pretty cheap and the implied access to CCP Devs and such being scanty. Honestly, I'm generally of the mindset that if you want to give money to a charity, just do it directly with cash, so this would be about the event more than the charity.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Pub Crawl - I don't know if my liver is ready for this. Seriously, I'm not a huge drink and mob scene kind of person, so I'd probably pass on this one anyway. It does seem to be quite the scene for the Eve players running rampant through Iceland.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Sisters of Eve Tour - Now seeing Iceland is indeed part of the plan, but the question here is if I want to do it under the context of Eve or just on my own before or after Fanfest. I'd be interested to hear anyone's opinions of the Tour indeed.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Lodging</span></h4>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I probably ought to get in on this quick too. I have a coworker who is a big fan of visiting Iceland, so I'll get her opinion on options in general. I'm hoping a bit that if I get a place for a longer period spanning Fanfest it might not be quite so crazy.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">AirBnB type settings sound best for the group reservations rather than the solo traveller. I should note that I'm sure I'm going to be completely socialled-out, so I don't intend to try to work out a group-lodging situation.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Beyond Eve</span></h4>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">A good part of the appeal here is seeing Iceland, which I've heard so many cool things about. The real question is how much time to spend on one side of Fanfest or the other to do that. After Fanfest will I be too burned out (or too excited) to enjoy seeing things? Before Fanfest seems like a better idea - then it's a matter of how much time to set aside.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">If nothing else, it will be an adventure...</span><br />
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<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06561998031457981240noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5430175273066918725.post-35334213306653830412016-11-06T21:53:00.000-05:002016-11-07T06:29:36.222-05:00My Citadel Assets are Safe - from everyone including me<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">So I noticed something in my Personal Assets section:</span><br />
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<a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-Bbt6piRk8Y4/WB_pTnaaz7I/AAAAAAAAAQE/WElOYo_zZ4Y02B2uTlmy3TVuKsTUgaWsACLcB/s1600/AssetSafety_1.PNG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><img border="0" height="30" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-Bbt6piRk8Y4/WB_pTnaaz7I/AAAAAAAAAQE/WElOYo_zZ4Y02B2uTlmy3TVuKsTUgaWsACLcB/s400/AssetSafety_1.PNG" width="400" /></span></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Hmm, I wonder what that is? Let's Google, as that's generally the best way to learn something about Eve. Here we go, an article on <a href="https://support.eveonline.com/hc/en-us/articles/208289365-Asset-Safety?flash_digest=f7139bbab8339c1ac194683f68aabde39d89d01c">Asset Safety</a>.</span></div>
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<a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-8r3VHonwXVo/WB_ptHz66QI/AAAAAAAAAQI/YjiPFc4O1uAHjPVEB8nQ3vnRD7cKn3pPwCLcB/s1600/AssetSafety_2.PNG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><img border="0" height="203" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-8r3VHonwXVo/WB_ptHz66QI/AAAAAAAAAQI/YjiPFc4O1uAHjPVEB8nQ3vnRD7cKn3pPwCLcB/s400/AssetSafety_2.PNG" width="400" /></span></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Ah, Okay, I remember that yeah - I bet I had something at a Citadel. So the article says to look at my Personal Assets under Safety:</span></div>
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<a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-asOCDkTVjVg/WB_qDb78bHI/AAAAAAAAAQM/-GoJ7u9cX4IHaytVRRZ-OxmqcePyRFU6wCLcB/s1600/AssetSafety_3.PNG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><img border="0" height="155" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-asOCDkTVjVg/WB_qDb78bHI/AAAAAAAAAQM/-GoJ7u9cX4IHaytVRRZ-OxmqcePyRFU6wCLcB/s400/AssetSafety_3.PNG" width="400" /></span></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I guess that's not it. Let's fly there. Yes, this is nicely marked as coming from an ill-fated Citadel that was even renamed to pin the blame on their competitors. I had put up some sell orders there as a test to see if it actually worked out. I guess not so much.</span></div>
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<a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-Gtl0ZFwdvj4/WB_qzbR4ZvI/AAAAAAAAAQU/YkWyddrIUKIEaGCefXzQYbtmn2NAyqmzwCLcB/s1600/AssetSafety_4.PNG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><img border="0" height="147" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-Gtl0ZFwdvj4/WB_qzbR4ZvI/AAAAAAAAAQU/YkWyddrIUKIEaGCefXzQYbtmn2NAyqmzwCLcB/s400/AssetSafety_4.PNG" width="400" /></span></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Okay, so all I need to do now is recover the assets and pay the 15% fee. Great - right click on the shrink warp - nothing. Right click on the items inside the inventory sub-window, nothing. Double-click on them? Nope. Check the various sub-menus under Inventory? Nope.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Well, not "nothing" I suppose - I can choose to buy more items like these or sort them or stack them, but nothing points to actually being able to retrieve them. So they are safe. Very safe. Nobody will ever get these items. Not even me, I guess.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><b>Edit:</b> Lightning fast response on the support ticket. The answer is that you need to click-drag the Asset Safety Wrap into your inventory and then you'll be given the option to pay the fee. Thanks to GM Molo for the overnight response time!</span></div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06561998031457981240noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5430175273066918725.post-24451095160672553522016-10-28T13:10:00.001-04:002016-10-28T13:10:16.604-04:00What keeps me engaged with Eve?This blog being pretty quiet lately is not entirely a reflection of my Eve playing, but it's not a bad proxy either. I have been able to stay in touch with all that's going on in Eve, and wow it's a lot. I won't try to recap any of the major things as there are already lots of good articles on them by my fellow staffers at CZ and in the more prolific blogs of the Eveosphere. It does help me look at rebooting Eve, both for my own personal side as well as Eve in general.<br />
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Eve Media / Meta</h4>
If it wasn't for the Eve meta, I think it's a lot more likely that I would have drifted away from the game in a more permanent way. That includes CCP run events like the Alliance Tournament, which had me tuning in to watch the matches as well as inspiring me to log in. Sure, the AT is very different from what you actually see on Tranquility, and whether or not TQ should shift to bring more of that structured PVP feel in is a huge topic if of itself. In listening to podcasts and reading blogs about what it's like to be in the AT I notice that people mention having to adjust to being back on TQ. With Thunderdome now in existence, I almost wonder if some of them might prefer to not come back, but keep playing the structured game long term.<br />
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The player-run meta (and media) also helps to keep me engaged with the game and paying my subscription. Threads on reddit can be news-breaking, but it's the longer and more thoughtful articles in blogs and Eve media sites that I spent a lot more time with. That is an interesting thought because we're potentially seeing some shifts there with the loss of gambling-driven funding for Eve media sites, and I hear rumor that CCP is considering changing the current <a href="https://community.eveonline.com/community/fansites/">Fansite</a> policy. (For those who aren't aware, CCP offers gametime or PLEX to those on the approved Fansite list.) Harmonizing those two areas seems to make sense: an Eve media site is essentially a multi-author blog site, but currently both receive the same benefit. Would it make sense for CCP to offer the rewards based on content authorship instead? I'm sure there is much to be said there. I think most folks agree that CCP gets a lot of value in terms of player engagement and retention through player content creation, the question is just how to incentivize that.<br />
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New Opportunities</h4>
I've been in Factional Warfare for a little more than two years now. Some players have spent a lot longer, or even lengthy entire careers here. For me, that's not quite half my time in Eve, and the balance is split between a newbie period and highsec and being a general low sec ne'er do well. Right now in Gal/Cal we're back in a place were the Caldari are pretty stomped and content is more about our corp/alliance versus "pirate" lowsec or slumming nullsec'rs. That's not particularly inspiring to the whole concept of FW, though it has meant fights that can range from T3Ds to AHACs to Battleships lately.<br />
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There's a lot more in Eve I could try out, though. Wormholes don't sound like they're in a great place right now in terms of player corp balance, and they don't seem to fit with a more limited playtime scenario. On the other hand I hear positive things from people in nullsec - perhaps the best state that nullsec has been in for years and years.<br />
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Old Secondary Activities</h4>
I've dabbled in industry, trade, and most recently PI - none of which terribly lucratively. I wrote an <a href="http://crossingzebras.com/portfolio-of-pve/">article on PVE</a> for Crossing Zebras, and I've been quite happy with the positive feedback I've gotten on it. I won't repeat that here, but I'll add that I'm sometimes torn between the feeling that logging in to flip indy or PI jobs keeps me with the game, or the feeling that it's keeping me from doing more exciting things that would fire me up more. Sure, if I only have 15 minutes before I have to make supper for the kids then that's not going to be a solo PVP roam, but it's also possible to sit down at the computer and realize that 60 minutes later I haven't really done much in Eve but push some things around. The need for ISK is certainly tied into this and I continue to think that the desire to fly (and thus afford) a capital ship may not be beneficial to my overall Eve experience.<br />
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New Players</h4>
The coming change that I'm most interested in is to find out what Alpha Clones really mean for the game. I've heard wildly varying expectations of what it will mean on launch day or three months from launch day. I'm a bit worried that a lot of the value for us Omegas is that there will be lots of new players wandering into lowsec. That might provide killmails, but maybe not so much good fights or retained players. There's no real way to know and I'm sure that lots of people in Iceland and beyond will be sitting on the edge of their metaphorical chairs to find out.<br />
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My killboard stats may not show the number of times I've flown logi in fleet fights (not my favorite thing to do, but I am seeing more and more why people really enjoy it), and killboards are a limited way to measure activity, but I think I'll only really feel like I'm engaged with Eve again when I get back up to at least 50 kills a month. Maybe less if I get back to doing more solo, of course. Many of the blogs that I really am impressed by talk about having goals, and I need to set myself some new ones. I just need to find the right spark to do so with...<br />
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<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06561998031457981240noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5430175273066918725.post-28581776130644461192016-09-22T22:18:00.003-04:002016-09-22T22:18:32.975-04:00Fire up that Booster<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The new boosting changes are coming, the mechanics of which have been well discussed elsewhere. I have a booster alt who has been pretty limited use and which I won't really be doing anything with under the new booster mechanics. The question of what to do with him has more options now that it did before, thanks to skill extractor/injector. Let's take a look at what he can do and then consider my options.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Consider Phlebas</span></h4>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">No, that's not his name, though someone has <a href="https://zkillboard.com/character/1254343558/">already been there</a>. So what does this booster alt do? Well, he's a bit more trained than boosting. He has 28.6M+ skill point from me wanting him to fulfill the roles of Proteus booster (training Amarr now), backup ratter (drone skills up to T2 Sentry), and PI alt.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">That Spaceship Command includes Command Ships 5, Gallente Battlecruiser 5, as well as middling Proteus flying skills.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Sell him on the Market</span></h4>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Once upon a time this would have been the only option. See if someone else wants this combination of skills. Generally I understand that focused alts sell better, and this one is split kinda three ways. Looking at the Character Bazaar it looks like he'd go for maybe ~18B ISK at best, but the establish <a href="https://forums.eveonline.com/default.aspx?g=posts&t=487558&find=unread">lowball buyers pricing</a> at below extraction value (more like 14B). I'm not sure how much little things like the implants in his head factor into the bazaar. There are enough variables involved that I probably won't know until I try to sell him. On the plus side, the fact that he has reasonable core and drone skills may make him much more useful for anyone who does want an active booster fleet alt. There's also the 2 plex transfer fee, so that means my best case value after fees is maybe 16B.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Brain Melting for fun and profit</span></h4>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The alt has 28.6M skill points, which means we can extract 23.5M SP or 47 injectors. Looking at Jita prices (a few days before this post will make it out) the delta between an (empty) extractor and a (full) injector is approximately 335M ISK. That makes it 15.8B worth. Not surprisingly, this is pretty much the same as the post-fee Bazaar value above.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">A nice touch here is that I don't have to lose the full utility of the alt. Just extracting the Leadership skills would be around 5B (<a href="http://www.ninveah.com/2016/09/brain-drain.html">like Kirith did</a>, always a good act to follow). Leadership plus Command Ship 5 and the Battlecruiser skills is perhaps 8B. I could choose what to keep and what to take out, and then take out more later. Since Cybernetics 5 is required for the Mindlink, he's positioned to be a SP farm alt, though I hear the <a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Eve/comments/53ykp9/rip_sp_farming_alts_2016_2016_conservative/">profitability has crashed there</a> (perhaps due to booster alts across New Eden being melted down?).</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Outside of the ISK value, I can take those injectors over to another alt. That'd likely be my indy alt, since my main (Jakob) is well into the top range of reduced returns.</span><br />
<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06561998031457981240noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5430175273066918725.post-1376982097624768392016-09-05T10:21:00.001-04:002016-09-05T10:21:33.892-04:00Eve Podcast Roundup, Summer 2016<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">It was a quiet month for me in Eve, but not because of No Man's Sky which lost out for time disappointingly quickly. It certainly hasn't been quiet recently in the Eve meta, with lots of big announcements coming from CCP in the form of the Booster changes and Alpha Clones. I haven't really been away from the Eve meta, both as a contributor (<a href="http://crossingzebras.com/cz-minutes-oh-god-free-to-play-everybody-panic/">CZM on Alpha Clones</a>, <a href="http://crossingzebras.com/portfolio-of-pve/">CZ article on PVE</a>), and as a consumer - primarily of podcasts. I figured it was time for another roundup of the podcasting world, as we've had a number new ones begin and old ones fade away. Full disclosure: as noted above I'm on the Crossing Zebras staff. It turns out that CZ has become the home for many of the active podcasts out there, though I've found my way to some others as well.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Talking In Stations - Recommended</span></h4>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Since this is led by Matterall, the first thing to get out there is that this isn't a Imperium-centric podcast, and apparently the <a href="http://eveonline-talkinginstations.blogspot.com/">recorded podcast</a> isn't even being hosted by TMC, though you can watch the live feed on <a href="https://www.twitch.tv/themittanidotcom">TMC's twitch</a>. I hesitate to call this a talk-show format, as Matterall keeps the agenda moving pretty well with a few exceptions when he is personally wrapped up in the topic. The first couple times I listened there was a lot of post-World War Bee discussion that verged on whining, but there's a lot more beyond that. It's a sign of a good Eve-meta podcast when you get a good range of guests on the show, and Talking in Stations brings in people such as Ashterothi, Jin'taan, and Tiberius Stargazer regularly. I see the next one I haven't listened to has Elise Randolph as well - I think he's been a guest on every podcast I've listened to in the past two weeks. Elise, are you running for CSM or something?</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The JEFFRAIDER Show - Mixed Recommendation</span></h4>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I've come to think that the ideal cast size for a podcast is three or four. At that point the audience can identify the speaker by voice, the guests don't talk over each other as much, and it's less likely to devolve into shouts and insults. This is why I never got into Podside and other podcasts of their ilk. When the Jeffraider (sorry, JEFFRAIDER!) show is good then there's a smaller group, they dig into something, and you hear a good of very experienced players (yes, primarily PL) talk about how they'll be using a new mechanic or situation. When the show isn't so great you have something like <a href="http://crossingzebras.com/the-jeffraider-show-episode-30/">episode 30</a>, where you start with six-seven people, then two drop and two more join and you can't keep track of the voices and it turns into a bit of a bro-fest. In the midst of all that there's still that good, experienced player talk but you have to get through a lot to get there. You can see that in the summaries too, such as <a href="http://crossingzebras.com/the-jeffraider-show-episode-29/">episode 29</a> which is summarized as "We talked about: literally fuckin' everything." Thanks, that's a great summary. So if the talk show format is your thing, then this is a pretty good example. It's staying on my subscription list, but I won't mind if I miss some.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">After Hours with Rixx Javix - Recommended</span></h4>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Rixx Javix is one of the great personalities of the Eve meta, best known for his artwork and his <a href="http://eveoganda.blogspot.com/">Eveoganda blog</a>. His <a href="http://crossingzebras.com/author/rixx/">After Hours will Rixx Javix</a> is a new podcast that is also hosted on CZ. This is not a eve-meta talk show, nor a focused mechanics breakdown, or any of the other things you're used to in an Eve podcast. This is a straight translation of the late night one-on-one interview format, complete with a lounge music intro and Rixx's perfectly matched voice. Interviews are primarily with the personalities and "creatives" as he likes to term them. If other podcasts tend to be shouty, energetic and hyped then this podcast is all about chilling out. So, in the words of Rixx himself: "Grab a cold drink, light a cigar, and let's talk."</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">On Grid - Recommended</span></h4>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">With Hydrostatic Podcast apparently faded away, Ashterothi has moved on to make a new podcast called <a href="http://crossingzebras.com/author/ashterothi/">On Grid</a> with Elise Randolph and Mike Azariah that has a more focused approach to the topic, though not a tight as Hydrostatic was. Ash's intro piece sounds a bit bombastic, but ignore that and get into it and you've got three very knowledgeable people from different parts of Eve that can give you a really insightful take on current events. Two episodes in they've covered the two big recent breaking stories (alpha clones, fleet boosts) so the real challenge will be reaching for longevity and consistently hitting topics this interesting even if there isn't a new devblog out. Definitely add it to your podcast device of choice.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Declarations of War - Strongly Recommended</span></h4>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Now hosted by CZ also, <a href="http://declarationsofwar.com/">Declarations of War</a> still maintains it's own website. I miss that DoW is no longer the voice of the mercenary in Eve now that Alek is no longer running Noir, but this is still one of the strongest and longest-running podcasts in the Eve meta. Co-hosts have come and gone (miss you NinjaTurtle and Ali Aras) but the general theme of EVE PvP (primarily nullsec-centric warfare) carries on. If you are only going to listen to a few podcasts about Eve then Declarations of War needs to be on your list.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">NeoCom Podcast - Tentative Recommendation</span></h4>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><a href="https://theneocom.com/">The NeoCom</a> started out as a bright and energetic podcast with all of the positive energy that befits coming from the Brave Newbies / Hero Coalition side of Eve. I always will have a great love for podcasts like this, just like the old Fly Reckless podcasts. There's been a lot of changeover at the NeoCom and perhaps that too parallels the rise and fall of the Brave/HERO cohort in Eve. Kira and Proto are no longer leading the podcast, but instead two streamers I'm not particularly familiar with: Manic Velocity and Elinari Rhodan. We'll see if The Tinfoil Factory will reappear as well (one of my favorite spinoffs). Hopefully the new crew will hit their stride and we'll see this podcast re-emerge.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Down The Pipe - Recommended</span></h4>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">You've probably noticed that most podcasts are focused on nullsec, which is why <a href="http://downthepipe-wh.com/episodes">Down the Pipe</a> is important as the only wormhole-focused podcast I know of. Led by Longinus Spear and his cohost Bronya Boga, this podcast has always been about getting the good fights for Bob's wormholey glory. The podcast has faded in and out over the years, but it seems to be back up again - though episode 62 was in July, so maybe I'm being overly optimistic. If Spear can keep this going, and you have any interest in wormhole space, then tune in. My favorite is probably the closing segment "storytime" where the guests go over a good fight they had since the previous podcast.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Broadcasts from the Ninveah - Recommended</span></h4>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">On hiatus now, we'll see if Kirith Kodachi's real life lets him get back into recording this <a href="http://ninveah.podbean.com/">unique podcast</a>. It is a meta-meta of Eve, since it is driven by Kirith's take on blogs that he has read and is recommending. Over the past year it has also featured Kirith's two young sons, one of whom was giving Eve a shot.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Other Podcasts:</span></h4>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">* <b><a href="https://eve-prosper.blogspot.com/">Eve Prosper</a>:</b> This is probably the most narrowly focused podcast out there, as it is all about Eve markets. Lockefox has made a name for himself here, which is I'm sure part of why we haven't seen more Hydrostatic podcast. If you're a market/industry player you should be listening to this. Me... not so much.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">* <b><a href="https://highdrag.wordpress.com/category/podcast/">High Drag</a>:</b> High Drag has gone quiet for a while (since May). I'm hoping we'll see it come back. I'd like to hear more of the small-gang, solo PvP kind of point of view.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">* <b><a href="http://www.hydrostaticeve.com/">Hydrostatic Podcast</a>:</b> I think with the hosts now split off to On Grid and Eve-Prosper we may not see Hydrostatic come back, though the fact that they've been publishing "Know Your Lore" might indicate that at least Phyridean isn't giving up yet.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06561998031457981240noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5430175273066918725.post-51776628734319603712016-08-14T22:10:00.004-04:002016-08-14T22:10:53.196-04:00Reflections on Eve from No Man's Sky<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“Are you cheating on No Man’s Sky with Eve?”, asks my wife as she sees glances over to the computer as I jump a gate. It’s a reasonable question. My son and I got through the PC launch problems Friday night and took turns putting a decent number of hours in. No 24/7 marathons here, and my son is equally interested in catching up on episodes of “</span><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One_Piece" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">One Piece</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">” as playing. No Man’s Sky is definitely the new hotness though. So why am I logging into Eve?</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The answer isn’t quite comfortable for me - it feels as much like obligation as entertainment. I have market orders that need updating, PI that needs to be moved about, and manufacturing jobs that have completed and replaced by new ones. That’s not exactly the same as “let’s see what’s on that next planet” that No Man’s Sky offers. The Eve activities have the feeling of obligation because they are means to an end - an end that isn’t here quite yet. In some of those cases, there are people expecting me to run those manufacturing jobs, so I don’t want to let them down. The market orders and PI are to make ISK that I can use in the future for ships. All that sounds like great training for some simulation that means to teach kids about responsibility and planning for the future. But is it fun?</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Yes, it’s an argument that the Eve community has had many times. Other games come along and Eve players give them a try, but in the trope we all know the players come back to Eve. There’s a novelty to the new game. To carry my wife’s joking analogy along, it’s the flirting fun of that new relationship that puts the sparkle in the eye. That novelty wears away and then it’s back to the tried and true, the more deeply engaging, where the longevity sits. (Note: don’t carry this too far - Eve is far less likely than your spouse to throw you out for straying.)</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">No Man’s Sky fits this well with its theme of discovery and exploration. The game teased the audience pre-release with a sense of wonder. While we have an activity we call “exploration” in Eve, it’s hard to get that sense of wonder. It’s hard for CCP to generate wonder when their cool new thing is visible on Sisi weeks ahead of launch, if not leaked of the Chaos server before that. By the time it gets the Tranquility anyone who is clued in knows all the tricks. Ghost sites? Sleeper redoubts? Mapped with optimal strategy from the get-go, which means that CCP has to balance it for perfect player knowledge, so if you intentionally keep yourself ignorant you’re probably going to get nuked.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The community has been talking about procedurally generated PVE sites for years - since I started playing at least. I’ve opined before about the idea of the “new space” on the other side of player-build jumpgates being procedurally generated, with a new batch of NPCs driven by the latest AI routines. We’re seeing serious discussion amongst CSMs and even hard-core PVPers that a reboot of Eve PVE is needed. CCP has seen many possible rival internet spaceship games come and go, so I’m not saying they should be threatened by No Man’s Sky, but there is something to learn from it.</span></div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06561998031457981240noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5430175273066918725.post-14796859661802745282016-07-30T21:54:00.002-04:002016-07-30T21:54:55.022-04:00Eve hotdropped my vacation<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Like many Eve players, I was away for quite a bit this month on vacation. Unexpectedly though, Eve caught up with me. I guess you really can't escape the spaceships!</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">About three years ago I was on vacation with extended family and watching AT videos on my iPad. My nephew was very interested and had lots of questions, but after my sister asked me a bit about what Eve was like she said "No." He had enough distractions going on to add Eve, which was almost certainly a good call at the time.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Fast forward to this July out on the Outer Banks and my nephew unfolds his laptop and says "Guess what, I've been playing Eve the past few months." He had moved pretty quickly into Signal Cartel and was running wormhole sites in a Tengu. When not in the wormhole, he had been running incursions. In short, he had immediately moved to two areas of the game that I hadn't actually experienced yet. It's a testament to how much Eve offers that this little coincidence is probably not all that rare amongst two randomly chosen players.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">So we ended up chatting a good bit about Eve during the vacation. The WiFi where we were staying was a bit shaky the first couple days, which convinced him he didn't actually want to undock and go wormhole diving while there. Instead he spent downtime playing around with EFT and asking questions as we rotated through the ship browser. He's a bright kid, so I'm not really surprised that he's taken in so much over a relatively short time.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Now that I'm back home that's increased my interest in wormhole diving for PVE. I've used wormholes to get to null to try ratting there for the bounties and the sec status, or to cut to other areas of low where a solo Gallente pilot might find a different kind of fight than in the warzone. Looking around the other day I found a hole to a C13, so <a href="http://invadingyourhole.blogspot.com/2015/02/shattered-wormhole-backpacking-trip-day.html">remembering Longinus Spear's backpacking blogs</a> I fitted up a Confessor and gave it a try for an hour or so. That blog was apparently before the nerf pass on the Confessor, but the idea held up well even without bling. I was pretty surprised at the value pulled in drops and salvage - yeah salvaging, that's something I haven't done in a long time.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Wormhole living isn't suddenly going to pull me away from my home in Gallente FW, but it is a nice sideline. Profit isn't bad either, and I continue to need more income streams if I'm going to actually be flying capitals down the road. All the more things that can open up in Eve - sometimes even when you're on vacation.</span>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06561998031457981240noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5430175273066918725.post-47606287119432485042016-07-04T13:44:00.002-04:002016-07-04T13:44:11.462-04:00Summer Blahs and New Temptations<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">A <a href="http://nevillesmit.com/blog/2016/7/1/listlessness">couple</a> <a href="https://evehermit.wordpress.com/2016/06/30/2922/">bloggers</a> have mentioned Eve things slowing down for them. I expect that a lot of us are in that boat. Schedules change as the kids get out of school and are staying up later, vacations kick in (I'll be out for a week in a bit), and other obligations come along (I have in-laws visiting the past week). This blog was written over three days and four sittings, when normally I kick out a blog in one or two. a</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">ll those things can easily cut into Eve time.</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">It's understandable for us to ask if there is something more.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I read a lot of opinions on people not being thrilled with the Shadow of the Serpent event. I have barely even logged in since it started, and I haven't tried any of the challenges, so I don't have any first hand opinion. I wrote a <a href="http://crossingzebras.com/shadow-of-the-serpent-motivation-and-metaphor/">piece for Crossing Zebras</a> about the structure of the rewards before it started, though I'm glad to see now that it's out that it is a bit of a hybrid between the approaches I mentioned. Getting the right structure is important for motivating players, and I think what they did was actually a good mix. Unfortunately, the rewards behind the structure are underwhelming for people, particularly when compared to the Thrill of the Hunt SP-fest that was just terminated. But I can't say that the event's apparent failure to engage the Eve community is part of me not getting undocked more.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">It's certainly not the content generated by my corp. Rapid Withdrawal has been racking up the kills, including getting in on some big fights through blues to local pirates. One of our FCs and content generators, Nate Atol, is on the Top 10 killer list on zkillboard right now. Our new alliance, Pen Is Out, is almost certainly going to start showing on the Alliance lists as soon as it has existed long enough for the kills to mount up. On the other hand, I won't be surprised if starting practice for an Alliance Tournament team means we'll see a sudden drop of kill stats for our top pilots. So there's plenty of content for me there if could just get free from guests and such when the quite frequent pings go out.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The more immediate threat to my Eve time is <a href="https://www.pathofexile.com/">Path of Exile</a>, which I played and then put away. When my son was looking for something to do with his extra free time, I figured maybe he was ready for some modern murder hobo hero action. Showing him how it worked got me playing again of course - I never had finished the story and now we're both racing through it on my Steam account. Maybe someday I'll try introducing him to Eve, but I know it may be a one-shot thing - if he gets turned off by the complexity then it may not be something I can try again next year.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">My Eve time is probably lucky that <a href="http://www.no-mans-sky.com/">No Man's Sky</a> got delayed from June to August. I expected that would be the big game-time pull. Well, it still will be I hope, it's just that now it will overlap more with the end of summer vacation and thus another set of schedule changes. I expect my son and I will dive into it, and since both of us will be playing that will make it all the more appealing for me to spend time on rather than Eve.</span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.tigerears.org/2011/04/24/wormhole-colours/" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="106" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-0rzbwXu3Zaw/V3qdlHmx61I/AAAAAAAAAO4/CSIer4XyzTgatP8VXRQu59i9FtLdDEL7gCLcB/s320/wc_c3_wh_tigerears.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Click for link to Tiger Ears wonderful WH resources - wish she still played and blogged</td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">So when I get time again I think I'm going to try throwing myself into something different. Maybe a concentrated effort on solo pvp, but the downside of the massive content-fest that is our FW zone is that you're up against some tough odds solo. Another option that I'm finding appealing is fitting up a Stratios and start wandering through wormholes without limiting myself in having to find my way back every play session. It's not too hard to have a PVP fit that can do some PVE (granted, not the big anoms) or that you can mobile-depot refit to. The Stratios is better than my cloaky Proteus for not needing ammo (technically) between lasers, neuts and drones. I'll have to hit up pyfa and try out some options.</span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><span style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Eve/comments/3yzzod/love_keeps_her_in_the_air_when_she_oughta_fall/"><img border="0" height="160" src="https://i.imgur.com/hLDS2fi.jpg" width="320" /></a></span></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Eve/comments/3yzzod/love_keeps_her_in_the_air_when_she_oughta_fall/">Beautiful image by zombietychus via Reddit - click for original</a></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">In the end, this is the beauty and the longevity of Eve. Other games may come and go. Right now I hear plenty of comments of people playing Overwatch or Stellaris. Then they're back to Eve again, either in the same kind of game as before or maybe something new.</span>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06561998031457981240noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5430175273066918725.post-61381747156402390282016-06-18T10:00:00.002-04:002016-06-18T10:00:36.144-04:00BB76: The Field Marshal upon Yonder Hill<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>BB76</b> - Why should Eve persist in an Iron Age model for command, rather than moving up a millennia or so to a more Napoleonic model of command. Let's give our FCs a steed from which they can command from a distance.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><a href="http://sandciderandspaceships.blogspot.com/2016/06/blog-banter-76-tanky-mctankface.html">Blog Banter 76</a> asks:</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; white-space: pre;"> </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">At fanfest CCP Fozzie proposed a potential new ship class. Let's call it the fleet commander's flagship for now. This is to try and prevent "FC Headshotting" where the opposing fleet knows who the FC is and alpha's them off the field leaving the rest of the fleet in confusion and disarray. Fozzie mentioned a ship with a great tank but no offensive abilities. Is this a good idea? Is FC head-shotting a legitimate tactic? If CCP do go down the route of a "flagship" how might this work? Also is a new ship the answer or is there another way of giving an FC the ability not to be assassinated 12 seconds into the fight without letting players exploit it?</span></blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Military history fans will have read "The Mask of Command" by John Keegan. If not you should add that to the stack by your bedside immediately. This post is not about that book, but from a small bit that I remember from the decades ago that I read it. He describes the change in the role of command over the centuries, notably from the warband leader ("Heroic Leader") who is first amongst the charging ranks to the field marshal sitting on a horse on a hill with a telescope ("Anti-Heroic Leader"), and eventually to generals in a city far away getting reports from the front lines ("Post-Heroic Leader").</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Our Eve FCs are very much in the first class, with the huge disadvantage that Keegan talks about - they can get killed right in that first charge. In melee the leader's troops can be inspired to follow and surround their leader to protect them. Keegan talks about Alexander the Great personally scaling the wall of a city he was seiging, forcing his troops to follow him or he would be lost. But in Eve as we know the only way to protect an individual is to keep reps on them. That still leaves them vulnerable to alpha - Eve's equivalent of an arrow or bullet right to the face.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">This implies there are two ways to protect an FC. The one talked about most is making an "alpha-proof" tank of a ship with enough buffer/resists for reps to land. Perhaps an ultra-Absolution kind of ship, or one with a special module similar to the new Capital Emergency Hull Energisers that also shuts down offensive capability</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">. Lore wise this could be interesting to build out of the recent Amarr experience with getting alpha'd by Drifters, which of course as with all Eve things would be immediately copied by all factions.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The second way I don't hear people talking about - put the FC in the place of the field marshal watching everything through field glasses. Keegan's example for this case was Wellington, and as depicted above you can think of this leader as very near the battle but above the scrum. Carriers already fulfill some of the needs for such a Napoleonic leader, such as the ability to lock targets over extreme ranges. So is an answer perhaps for this new "Grid Command" ship to be a cruiser hull with super-long lock ranges, a high number of simultaneous targets, EWAR resistance/invulnerability, and probably a good speed and sensor strength. If your FC is so valuable that you are willing to give up their ability to contribute dps, then why have them in the middle of the scrum anyway?</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">CCP would still have to worry about abuse of such a ship of course - but that's true of any new ship hull. it would be cool for some of the ship's new abilities to only exist (or be enhanced) when in fleet command positions - perhaps brain in the box makes this possible. Having such a tie would also reduce abuse since it inherently limits how many people in a fleet could exploit the ship in the inevitable, creative way that Eve players do.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">So if CCP Fozzie was to ask my opinion, that's the direction I would point him in. Eve FCs should move past the Iron Age commander and at least up to the Napoleonic era. :)</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Side note - the AIs are taking over the spam</span></h4>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I have moderation turned on after some spam posts. I had this comment pop up on an old post. The artificially generated posts (Markov chains or whatever the latest hotness is) are getting good enough that for a brief moment I was really trying to parse it as if it was written by a non-English native speaker. Unlike usual there was no hyperlink embedded for the advertising - that was done in the "poster's" URL, so you wouldn't see it unless you tried to find out who this poster was. The second sentence is definitely more successful in picking up from Eve phrases.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">"This is very considerably some sort of assurance connected with way as an alternative to whatever massive, in addition to many pleasant keyword phrases including suffering on the excess weight connected with its very own awesomeness. When i recognize of which Empire living space is usually a realistic beginning point having many stuff witout a doubt constantly in place, although I however hope we were looking at wanting to create the concept of this sailing factions to be a beginning point.</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">"</span><br />
<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06561998031457981240noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5430175273066918725.post-31991694336164225602016-05-19T21:41:00.003-04:002016-05-19T21:41:43.001-04:00Dread-ing Training<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">After Eve Vegas when the capital balance changes were first announced, I <a href="http://evechecklist.blogspot.com/2015/10/capitals-and-citadels.html">decided to make the leap</a> and slotted in Advanced Spaceship Command to get into a capital ship. There are a lot of expensive schoolbooks involved and very long training cycles, as I noted in my blog at the time. I was looking forward to being able to get into a Moros that would have utility in lowsec beyond POS takedowns. That was on 31 October, so I'm all done and a capital pilot now, right? Not exactly.</span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Since then I have deprioritized some of this capital training as we learned more about the capital rebalance and what it really means in practice. High angle weapons don't have quite the punch against subcapital targets as we might have hoped. That's still a very expensive ship to put on the line to try to blap subcapitals with given the DPS numbers. (Though I'm amused to hear of <a href="http://crossingzebras.com/slugfests-and-strategy-in-saranen/">MBC HAW Titans on the Saranen undock</a>)</span><br />
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<a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-5V5JaoX3JAw/Vz5lQcBPDII/AAAAAAAAAM0/M3Lvz-YhQXEXwldfqS3y09bBMpEuT5PpgCLcB/s1600/MorosHAWBlasterTest.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="207" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-5V5JaoX3JAw/Vz5lQcBPDII/AAAAAAAAAM0/M3Lvz-YhQXEXwldfqS3y09bBMpEuT5PpgCLcB/s320/MorosHAWBlasterTest.png" width="320" /></a></div>
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white;">I know I didn't show the full fit (it wasn't good, don't worry) but that 3.3B for fittings is notable (and I didn't go as shiny as many I'm sure). As I talked to local capital pilots and got advice on </span></span><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">slave implant sets for the traditional buffer tanking approach. We'll see if the new active-tank pirate implants end up making the scene for smaller engagements (oh, and that means Capital Repair Systems skill). In any case, that means another couple billion ISK. My wallet will definitely need reinforcement long before I can undock such a capital ship, given a guideline of being able to immediately replace any ship (and pod) that I undock. In other parts of Eve players could rationalize buying a carrier knowing that they could use it for high-value ratting to help pay the cost of that same carrier. That is not exactly advisable in low sec, and definitely not in a dreadnought. T</span></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">he carrier meta does look very interesting, though it is an even longer and more expensive training cycle.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">But what has really derailed my plans though is the ongoing use and value of battleships in both PVP and PVE. When I started down the capital training road I only had Gallente Battleship V. While the Dominix is a quite serviceable battleship for fleet use, the king of the PVP subcap mountain today is the Machariel. Like most of the PVP focused corps around lowsec, RDRAW has a Machariel doctrine, which makes Minmatar Battleship V seem like a good value train. On a side note, I went to slap a T2 Heavy Neut on my Machariel and realized that I'd never trained that to V either - since until the neut rebalance there wasn't any reason to use T2 neuts. So that's another couple days of training.</span></span><br />
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<a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-P05ktcwlpfU/Vz5rHHrD72I/AAAAAAAAANM/MFZmYDzCc6M9jl_PXTyrQcEsB47fDqlBgCLcB/s1600/2016.01.10.01.58.59.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="211" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-P05ktcwlpfU/Vz5rHHrD72I/AAAAAAAAANM/MFZmYDzCc6M9jl_PXTyrQcEsB47fDqlBgCLcB/s400/2016.01.10.01.58.59.png" width="400" /></a></div>
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<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span id="goog_161597772"></span><span id="goog_161597773"></span><br /></span></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">On the PVE side the Rattlesnake is the undisputed moneymaker whether you're running L5 missions or hopping through a WH to hit nullsec anoms. Fortunately this also uses Gallente Battleship for offense, though the Caldari Battleship V seems very appealing for that extra bit of resists. In my case that also meant polishing up some missile skills. All to get the ISK that could make it possible to get that even bigger ship. Hmm, this is starting to sound like a trap, isn't it?</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Really all of these are the classic trade off of more short-term pay off compared to a very long-term payoff. Capitals are not something that I see regularly in my current line of work. Battleships are. The capital skills will remain in the queue but have gotten pushed back by those 30 day battleship trains. At least for not I'm not tempted by the distractions of Marauder or Black Ops...</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">So I can technically sit in a Moros now, but I haven't spent for the hull and don't see that happening soon. I don't regret putting in that big train for advanced spaceship command but it doesn't look like I'll be putting it to use quite as early as I might have hoped. Instead I'll follow along and see how things develop for capital ships both in the wider universe of Eve and in the part of space in which I now reside.</span></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06561998031457981240noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5430175273066918725.post-7037277166098536012016-05-02T22:30:00.001-04:002016-05-02T22:30:06.669-04:00Please let me pay money for more Eve stuff<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Somewhere there's a twelve-step program for Eve players, but it doesn't culminate with freeing you from your addiction to the game, but instead ends with being completely nerded out on the game. Or as a CCP employee I suppose. It seems that CCP is working hard to save us from that fate, making sure we can't spend too much more of our RL cash on Eve RL goodies. But we can try.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Swag Tease</span></h4>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Once again with FanFest CCP has teased us with what <a href="https://community.eveonline.com/news/dev-blogs/hashtag-swag-the-fanfest-2016-store/">swag attendees can buy</a>. Clever t-shirts, sharp-looking button-downs, and even caps. Oh, we can buy those on the online store after FanFest, right? After all, <a href="https://community.eveonline.com/news/news-channels/eve-online-news/an-update-on-the-eve-store-spaceships-swag/">the new online store is going to open in the first quarter of 2016</a>. Sigh. Soon?</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">At least they've finally made some deal with Rixx so that we continue to see his prints for sale. Those are sore tempting too - I'm quite curious what reactions I'd get at work if I put the print of the Myrmidon up in my office.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I could do with more of that trend. I can understand if CCP can't prioritize all the logistics and such to get their own merch out, but perhaps can license others to use their IP and get a cut or something. That has it's own overhead though - perhaps worse that actually getting the merch going.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Empires of Eve</span></h4>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I've never lived in nullsec, but I got drawn in and bought "Empires of Eve."</span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I'm enjoying it as a history, but the sense of history as a lesson to be repeated is just too delicious not to apply to current events. For instance, fill in this Eve Mad-Lib.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">[Coalition Name] was constantly antagonistic. It fought against everybody and schemed to conquer every star system possible. [Coalition Leader] had created a political climate in nullsec where [Coalition Name] was feared and hated across New Eden. This was manageable when his enemies acted alone, because [Coalition Name] could mop the floor with any single adversary. But the [inciting event] was a crystallizing moment that brought all of [Coalition Name]'s enemies together. The adversaries of [Coalition Name] knew that at this moment they had the political momentum needed to unite in a grand coalition to destroy [Coalition Name] foreever. Nothing else mattered more than destroying [Coalition Leader]'s empire. The stage was set for what we now know as [Big War Name].</span></blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I bought the paperback, somewhat cheaping out in case I found that nullsec really wasn't that compelling. I'd recommend others to go for the hardback or the Kindle edition. The typeset in the paperback is not dark black, and the format is smaller, so I find that I can't read it at night in bed if I'm tied - it's just too hard to focus on. Those readers here who haven't hit their 40th birthday yet may find this isn't a problem for them though.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Fanfest 2017</span></h4>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">This year Fanfest happened to ride right along with a local school vacation week. Since my wife is a teacher that means that if we'd planned for it then we could have both gone to Iceland, done some sight-seeing, then I could go on to Fanfest. She's finally open to the idea... but sadly Fanfest 2017 is April 6-8. Amazingly the wife is still on board with the idea of me going for the first time next year. She looked over my shoulder and saw the Eve Vegas dates and suggested that, but I think I'd rather see Iceland.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">But really, I shouldn't have to go to Fanfest as my only way to give CCP money for some swag...</span><br />
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<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06561998031457981240noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5430175273066918725.post-568754602853849062016-04-21T12:03:00.002-04:002016-04-21T12:03:47.847-04:00Fanfest from a Distance: Build Your Dreams, Wreck Their Dreams<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Fanfest may be a long way away from here, but I'm plugged in to watch some of the key presentations. So this is my Fanfest at a distance, somewhat live-blogger style, with lots of links from videos and stills that are being posted...</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">While waiting for the stream my characters are making the pilgrimage to Amarr to register for the <a href="https://community.eveonline.com/news/dev-blogs/fanfest-2016-bring-on-the-wrecking-machine/">YC118 Amarr Championships Community Draw</a>. This is a bit trickier for some of my characters (*cough* Gallente factional warfare *cough*) so all of them might not make it.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Opening Ceremonies - Connections</span></h4>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Nice touch listing Upwell Consortium as a "sponsor", that's a fun little teaser. The light and smoke for the Amarr Championship seemed a bit out of place as Hilmar dropped right back into his calm, paced presentation. I don't know about other folks, but for me the </span><a href="https://react.eveonline.com/#nostream" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">React</a><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> website wasn't loading the scripts needed to actually have buttons to press.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Rooks and Kings: I love their videos, but honestly "<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G-O7FzwQO68">Message in a Bottle</a>" isn't their greatest. What I really wish is that we'd see them breaking out with the next great thing - Pantheon, Pipebombing, ... do they still have the skills and creativity to make it a trifecta?</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I get the grand vision Hilmar is looking for, but I'm not sure if joining Tranquility and Serenity is a good idea. Both have grown into their own communities, their own balance of economics, their own reality. There were some cool ideas tossed around on reddit for limited connections via wormholes that certainly would be a nice way to slowly bring the two together. In the end the barrier to making this happen is more of a political thing than a gameplay thing of course.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I had to chuckle at the Eve Valkyrie "<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IwznFUJ0ejY">Carrier Assault</a>" video. When will ship designers stop putting their main reactors right near open bays where people can blow them up? I'm sure the lore experts will jump in and the idea of the "recovering tech" that is referenced in this scenario.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=riCYfnHGA5k">Project Arena</a>: the overlay of the video footage and the VR rendering really helps sell that concept. Obviously very Tron-like here. I really like this as the next-level after the Wii first came in and got so many people up and "bowling" into their television across the room.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YLGdp9lp2Kw">Project Nova</a>: the successor to Dust 514 on the PC using a free-to-play model. I'll be curious to see what the Fanfest goers report on this. I'm not a FPS player really, but since Nova would be on the PC I could see giving it a try. My son might actually be more interested in this than I am, which could be very cool. "Dad, I need an orbital strike, now!" </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">However, the o7-segment between the two sessions mentioned that Nova would focus on space locations more than just planetary settings, which is a nice nod towards the potential teaser with videos for some time. How long until we can deliver a troop carrier full of space marines to take on an opponent's Citadel, perhaps to be able to shut down modules or otherwise affect the ongoing space battle.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Eve Keynote</span></h4>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Overall I like how they slipped a bit of an RP feel into the Keynote segment, with the pirate broadcasts interrupting things and the references to Upwell and ORE as groups who are present and active in a real sense. There's a lot of "great stuff coming, but you'll have to wait" that points to things whose delivery date is out past the next Fanfest, but that's balanced by more immediate deliveries as well. But on to the subtopics...</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>CCP Quant</b>. It's all about pi in the <a href="http://imgur.com/a/PNVJU">chart porn</a>. I'm looking forward to bloggers and podcasters like <a href="https://www.youtube.com/user/EVEProsper">Eve-Prosper</a>, <a href="http://nosygamer.blogspot.com/">Nosy Gamer</a>, <a href="http://eve-fail.blogspot.com/">Eve-Fail</a>, and <a href="http://marketsforisk.blogspot.com/">marketsForISK</a> tear into this. I love the teaser that the Palantine Citadel would require liquidation of 1/15th of all of the active assets in Eve today.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>CSM Elections</b>. Low turnout isn't a surprise, but it is disappointing to see. I'm sad that Apothne's real-life troubles kept him out, as I'm sure he would have been in. Given that Hyde got a permanent spot, chances are good that this would have been Apothne's to win. Will the Imperium folks be able to put their drama behind them enough to contribute constructively to the CSM? We'll see.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>Frigates of Eve book</b>. I gotta says that I was a bit disappointed at the end that the book is only frigates, but on the other hand that means they are going to be more comprehensive and in depth on just that class. Of course, it's a teaser of moving up through the ship hulls should the book be successful. Summer 2017 is a pretty long way away though.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>Official Eve App for iPhone and Android</b>. The big question is of course where this puts third-party apps like Neocom. I'm glad to hear that they do not expect this to be the only Eve app on your phone.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>Industrial Arrays</b>: That <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xNWZu6RTaCU">teaser video</a> was hilariously good. Getting into it though, I love the idea of the owner of the industrial array can allow usage for a fee. This is something that I'm itching to be able to do right now, as I don't have quite enough time and toons to run a POS on my own. First blueprints not until this Fall though, so that means the actual release is Winter or so. I'm not so thrilled at how far out this is though. Drilling Arrays in Winter is the next step, but not as sexy for me. The promise of beginning the full replacement of POS with Citadels by next Fanfest is a big one. </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Mining changes aren't quite my thing, but I'm glad to see that the Rorqual owners finally the rework, though I see there are already people whining on reddit that it will be unworkable.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>Faction Titans</b> and "<b>Shadow of the Serpent</b>". You know that Larriken was just waiting to be able to say "<a href="http://imgur.com/a/8GIzW">mere run of the mill Erebus</a>." I'm curious about how this event will work, along with the whole idea of rat caps and supers.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>CCP Ghost and new player retention</b>. This is very much a promise of direction rather than anything big, other than some nice phrases like "suffering from the weight of its own awesomeness." I agree that Empire space is a logical starting point with a lot of material already in place, but I do still wish they were ready to add the idea of the pirate factions as a starting point.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">And the <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0bjTrPutt4k">Eve Fanfest Trailer for 2016</a>. This really should be titled "Build Your Dreams / Wreck Their Dreams." I can't imagine that you're reading this blog and you haven't seen it, but there's the link to watch it gain.</span><br />
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<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06561998031457981240noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5430175273066918725.post-82980476749405258122016-04-14T12:38:00.000-04:002016-04-14T12:38:19.372-04:00The Fizzle's not in the Sov<br />
"<em style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #141823; font-family: Roboto, 'Droid Sans', Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 21.4286px;">This is the way the world ends / </em><em style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #141823; font-family: Roboto, 'Droid Sans', Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 21.4286px;"> Not with a bang but a whimper." -T.S. Eliot, "The Hollow Men"</em><br />
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<span style="color: #141823; font-family: "roboto" , "droid sans" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 21.4286px;">Perhaps the poet wasn't thinking of The Imperium when he wrote this in the wake of World War I, but I wonder if some disillusioned Imperial subject will end up writing "The Hollow Goon" after World War Bee. The Mittani has taken to making ever more <a href="https://www.themittani.com/features/war-update-forging-goonhammer">fantastical postings</a> on TMC, and they are being echoed by some that are <a href="http://crossingzebras.com/faderians-wall-shattered/">presenting a stalwart front with their master</a>, but honestly the increasingly desperate and fatalistic tones sound like they are about to break into whimpers. It seems the inner circle of the Imperium is ready to lash out at just about anyone right now, from their turncoat allies in CO2, to their opponents such as Mercenary Coalition, to personal attacks at members of CCP.</span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #141823; font-family: "roboto" , "droid sans" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 21.4286px;">I mentioned last time that I found the idea of joining the Allied forces very appealing. I figured I'd take a look around, so I found a potential event on the <a href="https://timerboard.net/WorldWarBee">World War Bee filter of Timerboard</a>, got into a newly refitted stealth bomber, and headed out. I made perches on the way and was particularly careful making the transition from lowsec into null Pure Blind at Mantenault. Nothing but empty systems greeted me. There were no camps on the entrance, no bubbles to slowly burn out of. Two systems in I saw a TEST pilot enter local, so I opened up a convo to ask how things were going. "Nothing happening" was the answer. Another couple systems in I met another TEST pilot and figured I'd try again and got the same answer. I got to my target system and set up some bookmarks around the IHub that was going to come out in less than an hour, but the single other occupant of the system (a Goon, even) wasn't anywhere on d-scan. I've never actually fired a bomb launcher before, so I warped over to a belt and tried tagging some rats but at least according to the combat logs didn't do any damage so I clearly have something I need to figure out. Perhaps just as well then that the only fleet I saw the entire time was a small goon interceptor fleet that raced through the system, spamming in local about how MOA couldn't catch them.</span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #141823; font-family: "roboto" , "droid sans" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 21.4286px;">I would have envisioned Mittani not railing with this effective admission that it will take them "years" of "long, cold and brutal" conflict to reclaim their place. There is no sign of these "Ancient Great Warriors" returning to Goonswarm ranks - instead it seems all of their great warriors, the ones with the adaptable and creative minds capable of fighting under the new Sov, well ... they've all gone over to other Alliances it seems. I would have expected some kind of call of "rise and get in fleets or be purged" with the Imperial Bureaucracy keeping track of slackers via the infamous PAP links. I would have expected a "fierce and hot" conflict for VFK or YA0 rather than "long and cold" - honestly the former would sound a lot more fun if I was a lapsed Imperium pilot. The expectation (myth?) was that the Imperium had an amazingly huge treasury from all those deep 0.0 riches, so even if they were outnumbered 3:5 then could be fighting in a home system, die, reship, undock, and be right back into the fight - unlike their MBC foes who would have a much longer reship supply line. The "Goonhammer" I expected was the power of the purse, combined with the Mittani's infamous political power, and the wily commanders who made the name for the CFC from being able to overwhelm bigger opponents with nothing but Rifters. Instead it seems that many of the big names are on the other side. Now the game's largest capital and supercapital fleet stays logged off or hidden for risk of being lost if it is used. The big take-away from the <a href="http://crossingzebras.com/close-quarters-episode-4-with-vily/">Close Quarter's interview</a> with Vily (jump to the end if you don't want Vily's long early history bit) is that he and others wanted to fight, but that pugnacious heart of the CFC is gone.</span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #141823; font-family: "roboto" , "droid sans" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 21.4286px;">What has fizzled is that the Imperium no longer has no confident swagger, no fearsome reputation, and no strong right arm to back it all up.</span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #141823; font-family: "roboto" , "droid sans" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 21.4286px;">A hot war that carried through spring and into summer would have been incredible for the game, though even as it is it has been good for the game. About two weeks ago I posted a Eve-Offline PCU count image. Here's the latest:</span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #141823; font-family: "roboto" , "droid sans" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 21.4286px;">Those two spikes over 40k since my last blog are great to see. There is a clear change in levels since the start of World War Bee. I'm c</span></span><span style="color: #141823; font-family: "roboto" , "droid sans" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 21.4286px;">urious about the future. It seems pretty clear that the Imperium will be wiped from the Sov map. This is accepted by the Imperium leadership and they're already setting up their pilots (those that remain anyway) for the war that will happen after that. If there is enough of a low-sec lull then the MBC will doubtless break apart.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #141823; font-family: "roboto" , "droid sans" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 21.4286px;">That could begin a new age of sov that might also be appealing to players like myself. We'd be looking at a sov-null that is shattered into many smaller nascent empires much like the dreams of sov we heard in the player meta a year or two ago. The Imperium, shrunk into a hardened core could be a villain of a whole new cast - perhaps they could be the marauding barbarians then, rather than the calcified structure they are now. Perhaps they would be feared again, like they once were, and maybe they can even start to live up to what Mittani is putting out right now. It would be a lot smaller, a lot less dominating, but a lot more fun.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #141823; font-family: "roboto" , "droid sans" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 21.4286px;">And it'd be a lot better than ending with a whimper.</span>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06561998031457981240noreply@blogger.com0